Behind the shed

Mid-air-link-up
Employees at the Norwich and Ipswich depots of City Link have raised £1,450 for children with life-threatening illnesses after braving the skies in a 10,000ft skydive. The money raised by the City Link team will go to the Make A Wish Foundation, which every year arranges to fulfil the wishes of hundreds of children fighting life-threatening illnesses. Nick Long, general manager of the Norwich depot, teamed up with Nat McDowell, operations manager at Ipswich, to complete the skydive. Nick said: “We decided to do something for Make A Wish following a City Link conference where we were all asked for our help in raising funds.”
Hitching a lift
A Jungheinrich forklift truck has been driven from John O’Groats to Land’s End – raising more than £15,000 to date for Cancer Research in the process. The truck, a diesel-powered counterbalanced hydrostatic model from the Jungheinrich 4s Series, left John O’Groats on 25th February and reached Land’s End four days later – despite encountering some severe weather in the Scottish Highlands. Three friends – Stuart Colvin, Steve Hare and Steve Golding – took turns to operate the truck in four-hour shifts. They undertook the challenge in memory of their close friend Tim Frankham who died from a brain tumour in May 2009.
Hilary inspects
Pall-Ex chief Hilary Devey is starring in a new television series rescuing failing small companies. The Business Inspector is a Channel Five series sponsored by HM Revenue & Customs. Hilary will tackle two struggling British businesses – one man bands, kitchen table entrepreneurs and struggling firms run by talented individuals – by injecting business sense into their passion projects. She said: “I hope to teach businesses how to improve their all round business knowledge and direction, cash flow, marketing strategy and in some cases even their enthusiasm.”
RNLI drafts in Actros
The Royal National Lifeboat Institution has taken delivery of its first heavy haulage tractor unit, a Mercedes-Benz Actros plated for Special Types operation at 72 tonnes gcw. The Actros 2546 MegaSpace was delivered to the RNLI’s headquarters in Poole by local dealer Pentagon Commercials. It works with a low-loader trailer and is used to deliver new boats weighing up to 27 tonnes apiece to lifeboat stations nationwide, or transport them to and from boatyards and other establishments for repair and maintenance. Items of heavy plant also pulled by the new rig can weigh as much as 35 tonnes. “We were previously sub-contracting out our heavy vehicle and plant movements,” said RNLI transport manager David Tidman.
15 millionth for tunnel
A Geodis Calberson lorry has become the 15 millionth vehicle through the channel tunnel. The lorry was one of the vehicles operating between the UK and France on Geodis Calberson’s daily Lille service. The milestone was celebrated by Eurotunnel and SNCF, the parent company of Geodis.
French television crews and the UK media were on hand to record the event, which was celebrated at both the English and French ends of the tunnel. The driver, Ricky Szitkovics, received a special gift to mark the historic milestone. Coincidentally, a Calberson lorry was also the one millionth vehicle through the tunnel.