On Monday June 17th 2019, Laurie is cycling from Lands End towards John O'Groats and on the way will be sleeping rough through choice, allowing him the freedom to choose where and how long he rests between days on the road.

So why is he doing this at 87 years old???? This is being done to raise much needed funds for a local Charity at Cwm Wanderers AFC to support children with Autism.

Cwm Wanderers ASD Academy was established in September 2017 providing a football Academy and social club for children and young adults with Autism and is a registered charity operating under The ASD Academy Trust. The aim of the Academy is to provide boys and girls aged between 5 and 18 with specialist football training in small group settings with trained coaches. They upskill the children and help develop communication, team work and promote fun through the utilisation of football. They have many children that have the potential to participate in main stream football and we are the first organisation within the UK to work towards moving children from the Academy, over to main stream teams within the club. Once a child is identified for main stream, they work with the main stream coach in Cwm Wanderers AFC to build a relationship between the child, coach and main stream team so that the coach is upskilled to handle the child and friends are already established before that transition over occurs. This ensures a smooth transition for the child to enable them to thrive in an already established team. Children from Cwm Wanderers AFC main stream teams actively volunteer at the academy demonstrating training drills and helping the children develop their football ability. This increases awareness of Autism within the main stream sector and helps tackle the issue of loneliness for Autistic children. After football training they run a youth club so that the children can enjoy and fun and engaging environment at the clubhouse. The youth club is set up with various activities all geared towards increasing communication, Teamwork and socialising skills which can be a barrier for children with Autism. They also work with the older children to achieve life skills through training them to serve soft drinks and snacks from behind the bar. This helps them to manage money, stock take and develops their customer facing skills and confidence, setting them up for work. They also run a Café at the youth club where children can learn how to serve food to customers. This also helps them develop customer facing and communication skills, providing them with valuable life experiences and confidence in themselves. They currently have 30 members attending the Academy on a weekly basis with a growing waiting list of children looking to attend. The current maximum capacity is 30 members and due to the demand on our service, The Academy is looking to grow.

"So why am I looking to help them?"

The main barrier that the club have is that they must train the children at a separate location from the clubhouse as the existing pitch at Cwm Wanderers is grass. When the weather is poor, the pitch is unplayable, and they cannot cancel football training due to the upset in routine for the children. They therefore must train the children at an Astro Turf location and pay a weekly fee for this. The issue with a separate location for training means that the parents must sign their child into football, then out and hour later. They then must move their child to the youth club to sign in and then out again an hour and a half later. This interrupts critical rest bite time for the parents as many of these children attend their activity as the only outside activity they do. As you can imagine, this is the only break that the parents have, and they must make sure that this is quality time that is being given back to parents for their own wellbeing. Also due to the numbers of children requiring singing in and out and the time this takes, 30 children is the maximum that can attend. This is hindering their opportunity to grow and provide this service to parents desperately needing their help. The club are in the process of raising money to replace their existing grass pitch with a 4G surface. This will secure the future of the ASD Academy and provide weekly uninterrupted training and quality respite time for the parents. It will also enable them to grow their numbers and provide this much needed service within our community.

As you can see, this is such a worthy cause and the amazing Laurence is supporting us all of the way on his journey. Please give all that you can and let's get behind him!