When Kindness Travels: Ian’s Fundraising Story

It’s been a little while since we last shared an update about Ian, our brilliant fundraising champion and honestly, he hasn’t slowed down one bit!

Some of you might remember Ian taking on the huge challenge of cycling from Melksham to Weymouth to raise money for Stepping Stones. It was a roaring success, and Ian didn’t just hit his target he exceeded it, raising over £3500 for our children and families. An incredible achievement.

Now, if there’s one thing we’ve learned about Ian, it’s this: when he sets his mind to something, he really goes for it. So it probably won’t surprise you to hear that it wasn’t long before he was planning his next fundraising adventure.

That idea became the Hedgehogs Charity Challenge, an online backgammon tournament in support of Stepping Stones. We’ll be honest before Ian came along, we didn’t know a huge amount about backgammon! But we loved learning about this passionate and welcoming community… and just how far Ian’s idea could travel.

The tournament captured the attention of some of the world’s top players. Super Grand Master Masayuki “Mochy” Mochizuki called from Tokyo to sponsor five young players and played the event winner live on his YouTube channel. World number four Michihito Kageyama also took part, sponsoring four more young players to enter. Alongside this were entries and prizes from Grand Masters across the UK and the USA.

From our little corner of West Wiltshire, Stepping Stones found itself firmly on the world backgammon map.

And now a brand new tournament for 2026 is already underway. The Cubed Backgammon Charity Challenge, kindly sponsored by cubed.london, builds on everything that made the first event so special: community, generosity, and a shared desire to make a difference.

We are so grateful to Ian for his energy, creativity and commitment to Stepping Stones. He’s shown us that one idea, powered by kindness, really can travel all around the world and we can’t wait to see where this next chapter leads.