Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Longtown Outdoor Learning Centre gives young people (both locally and nationally) the opportunity to challenge themselves, to build self-belief and confidence and nurture trust and friendship. But it needs your support. I am asking for your help and sponsorship to raise money for the Centre so it can continue to provide truly amazing opportunities to young people. 

I first went to Longtown Outdoor Learning Centre (LOLC) in November 2019 when I helped  organise ‘Grow Strong’, an activity day designed to build the resilience of young people, organised by local churches. Our group of young people had just finished on the climbing tower and were feeling rightly pleased with their achievements as the next group arrived who were physically challenged young people including amputees. It was inspiring and humbling to see them tackle the climbing tower with the same enthusiasm as our group. During the day the facilities and the instructors continued to inspire me. As a result, I approached the Centre to offer my help as a volunteer and have been doing so for the last 12 months. 

I now support Longtown Primary School’s Outdoor Adventure Club. This club is run by the Centre during term time as an after-school activity. The sessions are heavily subsidised due to one of the Longtown Outdoor Learning Trust’s core objectives to provide affordable opportunities to enable young people to participate in healthy recreational activities. The activities include canoeing, hill walking, stand up paddle boarding, climbing, caving, high rope activities, water rescue and mountain rescue sessions. The young people get over three hours of adventure for the price of a couple of pints. That sounds good value to me. 

When I was young I was a Scout which gave me an opportunity to try adventurous outdoor activities; they were informative, fun and inspiring. The sessions run at the centre give today’s young people exposure to a similar experience and have recently been extended to other local primary and secondary schools. 

Covid-19 has impacted all our lives and continues to do so. Under current restrictions outdoor centres are prevented from running residential courses, resulting in a 70% drop of LOLC’s income. In spite of furloughing staff, voluntary redundancies of instructors and increased use of volunteers the centre is struggling and needs help and this is where I am trying to play my own small part.

To raise money for LOLC I will be running (with maybe a little bit of walking) 50km (just over 31 miles) on the 29^th November. To give me company, encouragement and ensure I don’t get lost the Head of Centre, Mike Fawcett, plans to join me on the run. 

I have only run one road marathon before and that was in 2004…. So this will be a serious challenge.

The route will take us from Hay-on-Wye up into the Black Mountains visiting the peaks of Rhos Dirion, Twmpa, Hay Bluff and Black Hill before descending the Cat’s Back into Longtown. After a quick snack and encouragement we will then head out past Cayo Farm and up onto the ridge to join the Offa’s dyke. We’ll turn right and run along the ridge back towards Hay Bluff and then drop down back down towards Hay and the finish.