Story
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calisto MT','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">Thank you for visiting my ‘Just-Giving’ page for my London-Paris Cycle Challenge. Please, please sponsor me, if you are able, for what is a truly worthy cause.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calisto MT','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">This is probably the most frightening thing I’ve ever agreed to do, but that is the reason why I’m doing it. My husband has recently pointed out in complete jest that I’m fast approaching 30, he also reminded me that later this year I’ll be the better part of 50; as well as getting a laugh out of me he also led me to think ‘what have I actually done with my life?’ I wanted to do something I could be proud of and feel as though I’ve achieved something that wasn’t just a step towards my career goals; when I saw a story in the local paper about a lady in her 50s who’d just completed the London to Paris Cycle Challenge, and I thought that if someone twice my age could cycle 500km, so could I!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calisto MT','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">In completing this challenge I wanted to raise money for a worthy cause, and I cannot think of a more deserving cause than the East Anglian Air Ambulance. Based just around the corner from my work, I see the EAAA going out to save lives all the time. The ambulance is a 365 day-a-year life-saving service across Norfolk, Suffolk, Bedfordshire, Cambridge and Peterborough which covers 5,000 square miles, which is 11% of the total area of England. Much of the area covered is rural and remote, which makes air access so vital. Due to road conditions, especially in Norfolk and Suffolk, there are ever-increasing demands on these roads by the increasing number of road-users; Road Traffic Accidents are already making up more than 50% of all incidents attended by the EAAA.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calisto MT','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">The air ambulance is a charity entirely dependent on fund-raising and contributions. It costs £4million per year to keep their 2 helicopters, Anglia 1 and Anglia 2, flying. I think with ever- increased demands for our money when people are asked to give to charity a common question of ‘why does this charity matter to me?’ In the case of the East Anglian Air Ambulance this is a charity that could be called upon to serve you or your loved ones at any time, and I’m sure if that occasion should arise no one would want to find the ambulance was prevented from providing life-saving treatment due to lack of funds!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calisto MT','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">I need to raise £1,400 to be allowed to enter the challenge, 80% of which needs to be raised by 21<sup>st</sup> January at the latest or I’m disqualified- so if you’d like to see me dressed in lycra, huffing and puffing, covered in mud with blisters on my hands and serious bottom-ache, please dig deep!!</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt;"><span style="line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calisto MT','serif'; font-size: 12pt;">If you’d like to know more about the London to Paris Cycle Challenge, please click the link <a href="http://www.londonparisbikeride.co.uk/">http://www.londonparisbikeride.co.uk</a></span></p>
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