Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.See my light-hearted blog - http://mike-marathon.blogspot.com
The Sailors' Society is a less well known charity that I have chosen because of my former naval career and because the sea is still in my blood (along with hydraulic oil from raising and lowering periscopes!). The Sailors' Society provides welfare support in over 100 ports in 30 countries around the world. They are there to provide the sort of essential support that we, in the West and living ashore, are lucky enough to take for granted. For this huge sea-based community, often from poorer countries, travelling thousands of miles in multicultural crews of maybe 10 to 20 people and away from home for months at a time, The Sailors' Society provides communication (a phone call home), transport, rest and recreation opportunities, welfare assistance, financial support in crisis, and spiritual support.
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } £1,150 enables the Society to run the minibus service in Antwerp where seafarers are often berthed miles from amenities, for 3 months£285 a month will support the running costs for our Indian Port Chaplain in Visakhapatnam£200 a month supports the Sailors’ Society food programme in Tema, Ghana$10 buys an international phone credit for seafarers to contact their loved ones
The Sailors' Society may not directly save your life, but it does support thousands of sailors, who work at sea to support their families back home, on ships carrying 95% of the cargo that this country relies upon for its quality of life.
I also want to make donating a bit more fun, and a bit more of a challenge for me. Rather than donate a fixed sum in advance, if you would like to sponsor me per mile I cover in my preparation and during the event, please click on or paste the link (http://www.strategyengagement.com/index.cfm?id=265&fuseaction=browse&pageid=84) and let me know how much you pledge per mile.
You might like to cap your pledge so that I don't exceed your expectations (!). I would guess that I am going to cover about 5 to 10 miles per week for the next 26 weeks; a maximum of 260 miles (surely not!), a minimum of 130 miles, and a realistic target of about 200 miles plus the 26 on the day, so 10p per mile would be fantastic, and you might want to cap your very generous donation at between £20 and £30.
I started training yesterday (11 October), completing a stunning 2.5 miles. By the use of some clever technology (Nike +, a chip in my running shoe), I am able to record the distance run and upload this to the Nike website, so I can't claim to have covered more miles than I actually have, and you can also follow my progress! I am also running a blog at http://strategyengagement.blogspot.com/2009/10/london-marathon.html
Your act of generosity would help to improve the quality of life for an under-represented and unseen work force, and it will really help to offer them some of the "luxuries" that we don't think twice about.
Very very many thanks.
Mike
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it’s the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
