In 2015 our good friend and family member Chris Greenwood passed away at the young age of 26. He was an amazing individual that loved to help others and brought a smile to everyones face, especially those he was taking the mick out of at the time!

In his memory back in 2018 my friend James and I ran the Great North Run, in aid of Cancer Research UK and we were overwhelmed with the level of support and donations we received, eventually totalling over £1600, with partial donations also to Wheatfields hospice. This was testament to the impact Chris had on people, him proving it isn‘t the years in your life that matter, its the life in your years.

As we were raising money for that the idea landed and was developed of again doing something in his memory but this time a little closer to home. I was informed that he doesn‘t have a single spot to call his own where people can go to visit, and between myself and his parents we decided a good solution to this would be to get a memorial bench, by the sea, where anyone who knew him could go and spend some time with him nearby, in a place he loved.

This is where you come in. To achieve this we need help, the bench can cost anywhere upto and over £1000, depending on location, and we would like to ask if any of his friends or those who knew him would like to help us with our task by donating whatever they can to the cause. Any leftover money will be donated again to the hospice that took care of him, Wheatfields in Leeds who did and continue to do an amazing job, and very much appreciated the help last year. Further to this, anyone that donates and would like the location or details of the finished bench I will happily keep this page upto date so they can visit it themselves in future.

So with that plan in place we look to what it is we‘re actually doing in return for your generous donations!

I have assembled a team of runners, experienced and new, that all knew Chris and want to give their time and carbohydrate stores to raising the money for the bench. This is a group of people that I know he would love to see absolutely hooped trying to drag themselves 10 KM in his name! Assembling this team has been like herding cats but we finally got there, in no particular order the team includes:

Coral Greenwood, James Cowell, Ben Hall, Scott Walton, Hayley Duffy, Liam Gartland and myself.

The above, and anyone who has seen this and wants to get involved, will be running the 2019 Leeds 10K on the 7th July for the purpose of raising the money needed for the bench. We have all been training hard, some harder than others, with this goal in mind, so any support you can give us all be it donations or cheering us on on the day is greatly appreciated! And as mentioned, anyone who wants to join in and help us donate by running is more than welcome to!

Thats enough from me for now, hopefully we will keep this page updated as it goes along and I ask you to dig deep for this cause, no donation is too small, thank you!