In celebration of its 60^th anniversary, BUPA is organising an international charity challenge for 60 employees at Sarnelli House orphanage in northern later this year. The objective of the project is to help the orphanage on its quiet to raise awareness of the problem of HIV and AIDS in, whilst bettering the lives of the children living there building new facilities over a six week period. Community Connections plans to develop a sustainable relationship with the orphanage and encourage a stronger relationship with its BUPA business in. The Challenge will be part-funded by Community Connections, as well as fundraising activities completed by the volunteers. There are many things that we are planning on doing while we are over there, general maintenance and redecoration at the orphanage. We also will be creating a games area such as a basketball court or playground for the children, landscaping – planting trees etc at the girls’ house. Road repairs are another task, plus more. The orphanage we are travelling to is in Nong Khai, Northern and is called The Sarnelli House, which is home to 126 children, most of whom either live with HIV or Aids, or have been orphaned by the disease. I along with another 59 staff from BUPA will be going to the orphanage, from October to December to change the lives of HIV positive children in, I will be travelling within a group of 10 between 2^nd - 10^th November 2007.

SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE TO SEE THE DONATIONS SO FAR.

To support my fundraising I along with great support from friends have and will be doing a number of challenging events to give you that extra reason to sponsor me?

GREAT NORTH RUN - In September I will be taking part in the world's biggest half marathon, the ‘BUPA GREAT NORTH RUN’ in Newcastle. This takes a lot of time and training (ask Kerry, my girlfriend). I’m already in training for the gruelling 13.1 mile run, however luckily I have the backing of three friends. Ian Cummings, Jonathan Fineberg and Ryan Mountford are all doing the run too and have kindly all volunteered to put all the money raised towards this charity. Cheers lads. So come on sponsor not just me, but the four of us. Oh did you like the picture!! (top corner)

TIE FOR THAILAND PARTY

On Friday 24^th August we had the ‘Tie for Thailand’ party.

This was a brilliant evening’s entertainment enjoyed by everyone who attended.

The plan for the night was that we would charge everybody £20 to attend.  We had enough beer for everyone & too be honest too much for some. We also secured some really excellent prizes and these were raffled off during the evening.

The whole night’s entertainment raised just short of £680.00. So a big thank you to all those who attended and an even bigger thank you to ‘The Crew’ who organised & kept everyone entertained all night. So Thank you to

Steve, Karen, Ian, Debbie, Reo, Big Dave and Kerry.

The Prizes were kindly donated from; Cheshire Mobile Valeting, The Comedy Store, The Frog and Bucket Comedy Club, Odeon Cinemas, AMC Cinemas, Lancashire County Cricket Club, Manchester City FC, Tampopo Restaurants, The J P Joule Wetherspoons, Sue Merryman who donated a morning in her hot tub and Deborah Bray for her homemade Gin & Jams. Thank you all.

SALFORD TRIATHLON

Another big thank you to one of my friends at work Claire Bennett who on Sunday 29th July took part in The Salford World Cup Triathlon, along with her friend Jackie Bradley. They competed along with two hundred of the world’s greatest tri-athletes and swam, cycled and ran their way around what is widely acknowledged to be one of the most thrilling triathlon events and a favourite on their world cup circuit. Claire completed the course in 2hrs 45mins 5secs with her friend completing it in 2hrs 39mins 2secs. Between them they have raised £404.

So a thank you to the pair of you.

COMPUTER TOURNAMENT 

From 9^th to 21^st July 2007, I ran two successful computer tournaments (Pro Evolution, Playstation 2). In total 23 lads took place in total raising £115. Thanks to everyone that took part.

FINALLY BAKING… Another Thank you to Celeste Martin-Ross and Wendy Norton who have made some beautiful cakes & donated all the funds to the charity. Celeste & a couple of people from my team at work have also said there going to continue this until November. So again Thank you.

So that’s it. As you can see between now & November I have had my hands full with all these events, but remember its all for a good cause!  To see more about the orphanage go to www.sarnelli.org (there is an English link on the top right hand corner). I would just like to say a BIG THANK YOU again to everyone that helped in organising these events it’s much appreciated.