This is a fundraising event to help pay towards Lancaster's International Youth Games karate team so that they can compete in Aalborg, Denmark in July this year.

The challenge for the Strikeathon is for students to individually achieve the number of strikes (punches, kicks elbows, knees) below on either a large pad or punch bag on the night:

Up to the age of 10 - 750 strikes

Up to the age of 15 - 1750 strikes

Age 16 and above - 3500 strikes

Their targets must be met on the same night.

The International Youth Games sees young people from across Europe compete in a variety of different sports and also take part in dance and music workshops.

There are four host cities: Aalborg, Almere, Rendsburg and Lancaster, all of whom are twinned with each other.

In the past Lancaster's involvement has been overseen and funded by Lancaster City Council. Early in 2016 the council, due to unprecedented budget cuts, made the difficult decision to withdraw Lancaster from this fantastic event and opportunity for local young people.

On hearing this news a group of local sports leaders got together and agreed that is was too good an opportunity for local young people for us just to let the event disappear off the calendar, without doing everything we could do to keep Lancaster involved in the Games. To this end we formed Lancaster's International Youth Games Committee.

The sole aim of LIYGC is to continue Lancaster's involvement in the Games. All members of the Committee are volunteers so all funding raised will go directly to ensuring Lancaster can continue its traditional and proud participation in the International Youth Games and continue building strong bonds with our twin cities from across Europe.