Sport Relief and Swimathon 2014

This weekend is Sport Relief weekend, and tomorrow (Sunday 23rd March) I shall be taking part in the Swimathon in aid of Sport Relief.
I first took part in the Swimathon twenty years ago in 1994 so this will be the 21st consecutive year I have swum the 5,000 metre challenge. My twelve-year old son John is joining me and taking part in the Swimathon for the second year: he will be swimming the 1,500 metre challenge.
 
The Swimathon is Britain’s largest charity swim, and gives people of very varied swimming abilities an opportunity to raise money for charity by swimming distances of up to 5,000 metres.  This year's Swimathon event is part of Sport Relief.

 
Swimathon and Sport relief will be raising funds to help vulnerable people both in Britain and in many other countries of the world who are particularly in need of help, from elderly people to children, from helping people to find jobs or cope with disabilities to medicines and other means of protecting against deadly diseases.

 
To give a couple of examples of the good causes being supported by Sport Relief, two of the local causes being supported in Cumbria are
 
* Age UK
 
Age UK supports isolated older people in the local area. An Age UK initiative supported by Sport Relief recruits volunteers to serve on Village Action Groups and develop community-led initiatives and campaigns to bring the community together and improve services and facilities for older residents.

 
* Forward Assist - About Turn
Many armed forces veterans can experience post-traumatic stress disorder after being discharged from active service. About Turn offers them the opportunity to become qualified angling coaches, reducing the chance of them becoming homeless or turning to drugs or alcohol.

 
 
A big thank you to those who have already sponsored either me, or my son John. It is possible to sponsor swimmers online: If you would be kind enough to sponsor me, and would like to use the online facility, you can do so at the following sponsorship page URL:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more