Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Whilst this will be my 3rd successive London to Paris cycle, I am self-funding the support costs associated with this challenge, so the FULL amount of your donation will go directly to the Fibroduck Foundation in support of their valuable work.

Fibroduck was started back in 2009 as an awareness campaign, which rather ambitiously was called 'the one million ducks campaign'. The duck was chosen because people with Fibromyalgia very often feel like a duck out of water. Things that other people find easy, we can find very difficult - a bit as though we had webbed feet and duck wings. The spots on the duck signify the tender points on the body that are used in our diagnosis.

The point of Fibroduck was to help raise awareness of a condition most people have never heard of and even fewer people can pronounce. The idea was, we would send out little plastic ducks, and people would send in pictures of their ducks doing fun things and visiting interesting places. 

Over the first two years of the campaign, Fibroduck has visited every continent and met lots of people including Paul Daniels, Dame Ellen MacArthur, Lulu and the cast of Coronation Street. People sent in their pictures, and there are now over 3000 pictures of ducks on Fibroduck.com. 

One of the things we discovered during the campaign was, there is hardly any biomedical research being done into fibromyalgia. We have no definitive medical test for diagnosis, and no effective treatment. So, 2011, we became a charity, with the aim of funding a research study. 

All of our trustees have fibro, or care for someone with fibro, so sometimes we feel daunted by the task. It can be slow going. We appreciate it so much when a group gets together to put on an event to raise funds for us, as you have. 

 Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.