Dynamic adventures, a Community Interest Company in Totnes, are crowdfunding to increase the accessibility of their facilities. 

Dynamic adventures work on not-for-profit projects to enable those who would not normally get to experience adventures to take part.

They aim to positively impact the lives of those they work with and invest 100% of their profits back into the company and the experiences they offer for local children, disabled adults and children and charity groups.

The crowdfunder will allow them to build fully-accessible wet rooms, upgrade their accessibility equipment and add a barn heating system. 

Paul Mitchell said: “Wheelchairs are able to come straight in to our showers but they’re not disabled friendly so its a way of opening up access for our facilities... we’ve been working with a couple of charities and one of them, Help for Heroes, said it would be a criteria for us working with them.”

“We’re upscaling what we can offer to all abilities. We work with many groups that would benefit from more accessibility. 

“We also want to buy disabled friendly equipment, like canoes and archery equipment (but) as a not-for-profit its hard to raise the funds.”

They are hosting various events to raise money for their Crowdfunder, including a Lone Wolf, which is a 7km loop round Dartington where patricipants complete for an hour before the race starts again. The competition keeps going all day until there is one runner left. 

They are also running a Santa Fun Run, a neon luminous activity zip line in the dark and a decathlon, with ten events in one day.

The charity has strong links with the local community. They work with Torbay Drug and Alcohol Service every week and have done about forty different activities with the group. 

“We also work with lots of local schools in the Plymouth and Totnes area.”

They run Duke of Edinburgh qualifications for schools, including a school in Devonport, and a big part of what they do revolves around educating people on the environment.

One event they organised to promote this was a mass litter collection on Dartmoor, which collected two tonnes of litter.

“It was more powerful than just creating rubbish,” said Paul. “(The community in) Tavistock were amazed at all the teens picking up rubbish and joined in, with (even the) elderly coming to help. It promoted teenagers as well as the environmental work.”

He added: “Every session we do has an environmental element to it.”

Once a month the company hosts ‘adventure for all’ days, offering adventures at a very low price, including zip lining and archery. These events are targeted at the local community. 

Paul said: “We’re quite established at Dartington, we’ve been here for 15 years…. Everyone from the local schools know us. Parents who came to us long ago now come with their kids.”

Being a Community Interest Company allows then to have better ratios of instructors and lower prices, and they train up instructors, who can obtain all their outdoor qualifications. 

But Paul said it can be difficult with a lack of disposable income: “Sometimes being a not-for-profit is quite challenging when you have capital projects, like buying a vehicle or fleet of canoes or (building) showers.”

Dynamic Adventures has been running for 25 years and became a Community Interest Company 15 years ago: “We build up a relationship with clients over a long time... one of the positives that came out of Covid is that everyone understands the importance of being outdoors.”

Find their Crowdfunder here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/access-to-adventure-for-all