Thanks so much for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

My name is Paul Wilson - I'm a very proud member of the Rotary Club of Grantham, England. For the past 22 years over a long weekend in February, our club has organised and run a swimarathon fundraising event at our local Grantham Meres Leisure Centre. Last year alone we had over 1400 participants in over 200 teams, and together they raised just less than £50,000. The club donates over 90% of the money raised direct to local charities and community groups, with the remainder going to the Rotary International Foundation supporting our global End Polio Now initiative.

As the youngest and dare I suggest fittest member of our club, I've decided that for this year's event over the long weekend of February 3rd to February 5th 2012, rather than me simply participating in our own club swim team, I'd set myself a rather more challenging goal.

So in honour of Olympic year 2012, I've set myself the marathon target of swimming 201.2 lengths of the 25M pool - just over 5000M . In the spirit of Rotary Fellowship and Service above self, I'm aiming to help out at least 21 other teams over the weekend, by joining as a spare man!

My original marathon calculations led me to 2.6 miles of swimming being 4200M or 168 Lengths, but as it's Olympic year, 201.2 seems much more appropriate, and at over 3 times the official olympic Triathlon distance I'm hoping you'll consider it an effort worthy of your support.

******UPDATE 17th FEBRUARY 2012**** So delighted to report that after 3 wonderful days of our most successful local Swimarathon ever, I managed to clock up 250 lengths and over 7 hours swimming including 1 solo hour swim . Many thanks to the fantastic teams that allowed me to swim with them, The Grantham Journal , Gravity FM team, our own Rotary Rollers, Team Keyring, and Roger Graves Swims, and for the final hour the wonderful Grantham Lynx Disability swimming club who let my son swim a few lengths with me as well!!

CHALLENGE COMPLETED!

NOW ON TO GLOBAL SWIMARATHON PART 2 OF THE CHALLENGE!!

As well as our annual swimarathon, we've now managed to organise an incredible Global Swimarathon event http://www.facebook.com/rotaryglobalswimarathon on 25th February 2012 with dozens of clubs from all 6 continents of the world taking part. Official event ambassadors are Australian open water Ultra Marathon swimming legend Penny Palfrey and Paralympic and World Championship winning Swimmer Fran Williamson in the UK! -

*****Update 29th February 2012****

Brilliant to report that over 5000 people took part in 23 countries - swimming  at the exact same hour- which has unofficially doubled the existing world record - most importantly latest figures for fundraising total world wide is over $50,000 and rising fast

CHALLENGE COMPLETED!

CHALLENGE 3

24 hour swim!

During Global swimarathon at least 15 time zones around the world were represented - so swimmers took part at 0100-0200 GMT in New Zealand, 0400-0500 - West Coast USA, 0600-0700 Central USA - 0700-0800 East Coast USA / Canada 1200-1300 UK / Canary Islands 1300-1400 - Europe 1400-1500 Eastern Europe/ Africa 1500-1600 - East Africa 1700-1800 Pakistan 1730-1830 - India 2000-2100 Phillipines / China 2130-2230, 2200-2300, 2300-2400 Australia. QUITE EXTRAORDINARY

Now I've been thinking about how I can show my appreciation for all of you who were prepared to turn out especially at such late or early hours of the day, and here it is. I've got a cruise holiday coming up in April, with 24/7 access to a pool so......

On 1 day, I plan to swim 100 metres in each and every one of the time zones I just listed out! Starting at 0400-0500 and going through till 0100am - naturally I will do all of this wearing my End Polio Now tshirt throughout, and will hopefully be able to get passengers on board involved, aware and supporting our cause

****Update*****

CHALLENGE COMPLETED  - on Monday 9th April last but one day of the cruise I retired to bed at 1am and got up at 4.50 am for the first of my swimming sessions in the icy cold outdoor pool , and managed to swim at intervals all day -see how I got on here....

http://youtu.be/LQjMZb6pw2I

http://youtu.be/DC8LWwhZNEI

CHALLENGE 4 OPEN WATER SWIM

They have inspired me to extend my challenge to June 2012, where I am going to take part in my first ever open water swim event at the British Gas Great North Swim in Lake Windermere.

On the day of Global Swimarathon itself, people taking part around the world will swim at exactly the same time to set a new world record (current is 2533 people) for the most simultaneous swimmers - so I'll make sure the last 4 lengths of my 201.2 lengths challenge will be swum at the event

So remember every single penny of the funds I raise will be shared and go directly to local Grantham Charities and the World Wide EndPolio Campaign - who knows I might end up swimming a channel (I'm pretty good at changing tv channels!!)

This means an incredible amount to me personally and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support.

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