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Highland Cross

Highland Cross is a  50-mile duathlon (20 miles on foot, 30 miles on bike) traversing the spectacular Scottish Highlands coast to coast, west to east from Kintail through Glen Affric and Strathglass to Beauly.

Highland Cross exists to raise money for causes that benefit the people of Highland, disadvantaged by disability, ill health or social need.

Entry to the Highland Cross is by invitation only for 265 teams of 3 (795 persons) of all athletic abilities; walkers, joggers, runners and cyclists. Teams must pledge to raise a minimum of £500 in sponsorship for the charities nominated by Highland Cross.

Charities interested in becoming beneficiaries from Highland Cross should consult the "Charities" page and fully examine the funding conditions before applying.

March 2025

Justgiving - click here to set up a fundraising page for the 2025 event.

February 2025

Team entry payment reminder – deadline is Wednesday 26th February

Team entry owners are reminded that if they wish to take up the offer of a team place for this year’s Highland Cross, then they need to complete the process by paying the entry fee before the deadline of midnight on Wednesday 26th February – see your acceptance email from SiEntries on 5th February.

You should log in to SiEntries and go to "My Entries / Memberships" to find your Highland Cross 2025 email acceptance dated 5th February and click on "Accept Invitation" to convert your entry to a full one by accepting all the terms and conditions, and this will take you to the payment process.

If payment is not received by midnight on 26th February, your team place may be offered to one of the teams on the waiting list.

The following are statements from the charities that are to benefit from Highland Cross 2025:

Badenoch and Strathspey Community ConnXions (BSCX)

Badenoch and Strathspey Community ConnXions (BSCX) is a registered charity that was set up in 1999 by the community for the community. Our purpose is to strengthen our community by providing accessible transport and wellbeing opportunities. Over the years we have grown our services based on local need and now offer social activities, assisted shopping, green health and a befriending service.

We believe that transport is the building block to good health and wellbeing. Our work prevents loneliness and isolation, and we provide accessible transport so people can attend health appointments, leisure activities and weekly shopping trips.   We work closely with many local groups and provide the transport to enable their activities to take place.

We have 25 years of experience in operating our services and are well regarded across the Community Transport Sector, winning UK Community Transport Association Provider of The Year in 2023. We have service level agreements and a range of long-term funders.

Our work directly supports around 400 people every year and has a social value of over £320k. We have a small team of 8 P/T staff and 60 volunteers who all care deeply about our community.

This funding will allow us to replace our accessible minibus which is now uneconomical to repair. The new vehicle will be utilised straight away and will provide many years of accessible transport for our wider community.

Highland Homeless Trust t/a Gateway

Gateway values affording opportunities to vulnerable adults. Pioneering in approach, we work hard to provide creative, innovative solutions through collaboration and partnership.

Gateway has invested significantly in purchasing a beautiful home to provide supported living for six people with learning disabilities. The house is in the small hamlet of Upper Myrtlefield, Inverness, with extensive grounds allowing residents to enjoy the outdoors and create spaces of interest.

Being a successful recipient of Highland Cross funds will enable the purchase of a vehicle that will suit the needs of our supported people, providing the last essential to this bespoke project.

Transport can be difficult to use for people with additional support needs. By promoting residents' well-being and in keeping with our values and principles, Gateway wants to ensure that the residents have many opportunities and independence to socialise and participate in the many varied community-based activities in and around Inverness.

Through listening, we have learned that being active and out in the community can help those we support feel happier, included, and valued. We want people to be able to do what they enjoy and make their own choices about what they do, when they do it and who they spend their time with.

This vehicle will benefit the residents by improving their opportunities for further integration into the community, providing access to new events and places, and providing opportunities for learning through experience to maintain and improve long-term health outcomes.

Rag Tag and Textile Ltd

We are a charity on Skye providing support through creative craft workshops to people with mental illness or poor mental wellbeing. In this rural area where statutory services are often missing or overstretched our service is vital. The people we help are referred to us by healthcare professionals because they need our support.

Students receive training in a variety of crafts during tutor-led workshops, gaining self-esteem from producing items they keep or offer for sale in our attached charity shop. We aim to increase students’ confidence, motivation and wellbeing, to improve social skills, and to help them make friends and connections within the local community, where we often do joint work. We are recovery-focussed and provide opportunities and assistance for students to volunteer and, where appropriate, to move on to employment.

Many of our students struggle to reach us because public transport is poor, or because they need a door-to-door service owing to physical disabilities or anxiety issues. We provide a limited taxi service but the cost at over £1000 per month is unsustainable. We face the prospect of having to deny some students a service if we cannot find an alternative.

Our application for a minibus would solve this problem, and would also allow us to engage more widely with other community groups. It would allow us to take students to craft fairs, exhibitions of their own work, horticultural therapy sessions, and on social visits away from our home base – to enhance their mental wellbeing and to have fun.

Skye and Lochalsh Mental Health Association 
If successful in gaining this Highland Cross funding, we would purchase a hybrid minibus in order to provide equality of access to our well-established drop-in centre (Am Fasgadh) in Portree. We would use the minibus to provide transport for the people of South Skye and Lochalsh (SSL), at least twice a week and one weekend in 5, from home to Am Fasgadh and back again.

Living with mental illness is isolating, sometimes just managing to get up and dressed takes all your effort far less trying to get to a bus (that might not be there) to access support services. The remote and rural nature of SSL means it is more difficult than in other areas to access services. We have researched what our members need and want from our service. Overwhelmingly, they have told us, what they want is to feel a bigger part of our community and to be able to attend Am Fasgadh in Portree.

Am Fasgadh is a safe place where we can meet, build relationships, and access a hot, home cooked meal daily. Running this minibus service will allow SSL members to access the same facilities and supports as the Portree and North Skye service users.

We would also use the minibus to provide improved access to trips for all our service users. Just because you have mental health issues that should not prevent you from having great experiences and making memories while still being supported.
 

Highland Cross 2024 - Photography

Click here to view images from Alligin Photography.

Click here to view images from David Stewart.

November 2024

HIGHLAND CROSS 2024 – 40^th running of the event

Highland Cross reaches over £6.3million!  The figure raised in 2024 from Highland Cross participants is £368,295!

On 14 November 2024, the 4 principal charities received presentations:

• Cantraybridge – are purchasing a new minibus

• Highland BlindCraft – are purchasing a new van

• Highland Disability Sport – are purchasing a new minibus

• L’Arche Highland – are purchasing a new vehicle

In addition to the primary causes, the participants’ success will also allow some smaller grants to be distributed to charities across Highland over the next month.  The Organisers would once again like to thank competitors, sponsors and volunteers for their continued support of Highland Cross.

The two teams comprising of folk from the Edinburgh based investment management firm Baillie Gifford and Dell Technologies (Richard McGrail, Tom Stockwell, Kenny Hamilton, Stuart Dunbar, Gareth Owen and Stephen Bosarge) raised an astonishing sum of £26,229 as the top fundraisers this year and the top standard three person team is a team called “Heathers Heroes” comprising of Ryan Magennis, Donal Bolger and Mike Roberts who raised a magnificent figure of £7,520.

Highland Cross have signed up with JustGiving to enable competitors to set up their own sponsorship page.  Click here to set up a 2025 fundraising page.