CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME

Paul Argent reports on a high-spec JCB excavator that is spearheading an ongoing charity fundraising campaign by the Waitings Group

The Penrith-based, family-owned Waitings Group undertakes a variety of construction and civil engineering disciplines across the UK. To support local cancer charities and hospices, Waitings commissioned a pink-painted JCB JS220 excavator, the firm donating a percentage of its profits to local charities. In tragic circumstances, not long after the arrival of the pink machine, managing director Victoria Waiting lost her short battle to a brain tumour. Heartbreakingly, Victoria had recently lost her sister-in-law to the same disease. Operations director Adrian Ash said, “It has been a very difficult few years for us all at Waitings following the loss of Victoria.

Thankfully Robert Waiting, Victoria’s brother, had re-joined the company before she passed, so the strong ethics and family values we treasure are maintained from the top. While we were devastated at the losses, we knew that Victoria would want us to carry on our fundraising efforts, as a legacy to all the great things she stood for.”

The JCB JS220 served the firm and its clients well over the years. When it was time to move it on, the pink excavator also attracted a substantial bid at a Richie Bros auction. Its total earnings during its time on the Waitings fleet resulted in over £100,000 of charitable donations, split between Hospice at Home, Eden Valley Hospice and Brain Tumour Research.

This old-style JS excavator has recently been replaced by a new generation 220X model, again factory-painted pink and supplied through Scott JCB.

Adrian remarked, “The factory and the dealer embraced the idea and supported the project all the way, for which we are very grateful.”

Attachments

The new excavator has been outfitted by Manchester-based MTK with a Kinshofer NOX tilt-rotator, supplied in a matching pink colour scheme. As reported in the Shire Hill Quarry feature in this issue, attachment supplier MTK supports several cancer charities in the north west, and manufacturer Kinshofer has also come on board to help with such charity fundraising.

As did Irish bucket manufacturer Titus, which was keen to supply a Scandinavianstyle bucket in the same livery. As this 220X is destined to spend a great deal of its time working on rail infrastructure projects, it has been fitted a comprehensive Xwatch XW5 safety system, through local rail engineering specialist Allan Hargreaves. Adrian is keen to point out that, when the deals were done for the machine and attachments, any discount provided by the dealers was paid directly into the 220X’s own charity account.

Adrian said, “We decided to set up the JCB with its own bank account, making it totally visible as to the amount of money it is earning for charity. All of the discounted monies from the likes of MTK, Allan Hargreaves and Xwatch, Titus and Leica have been paid into the account. Without the machine doing more than a few days work, we have already raised in excess of £5000.”

Site Visit

We gate-crashed a JCB video shoot of the new 220X excavator on an access road project being undertaken by Waitings close to their Carlisle HQ. With JCB’s social media star Georgina Williams at the controls, the tilt-rotator equipped excavator quickly spread the material, feathering it out to the haunches of the road.

Georgina said, “My role as a JCB test driver gave me the opportunity to drive all sorts of different machines, but getting to operate this custom pink 220X is definitely a career highlight. Using a tilt-rotator is a new challenge for me, but something I could absolutely get used to.”

After a couple of days work on this site, the 220X was taken back to the yard in Carlisle to have its standard working equipment replaced by a 15m long-reach boom and dipper set-up, before being despatched to a rail project in London.

Adrian concluded, “We did the same with the older machine, which allowed us to fully utilise its capabilities. It works well as a long-reach machine and is liked by our rail engineering teams.

“More importantly, the more work we are able to put the machine on, the more money we can raise to help our chosen charities. We are expecting to earn far more with this machine and have set targets that, if achieved, will be fantastic. Again, we are very grateful to our supply chain and our generous clients for making this venture possible.”