My name is Ben. For those of you who know me, I am a volunteer at National Star College - I used to be a student nearly ten years ago. 

I heard about the 2.6 Challenge from Marianne Sweet who works in marketing for the college and how it is replacing big public events such as the London Marathon this year for obvious reasons. The residents at Foundation House (a longterm residential accommodation ran by the college) - where I would normally be right now if it weren't for COVID (I am currently self isolating back in North Wales) - are doing some sort of dance-athon because they are a lively bunch, and so I thought I would counter this by playing music for 2.6 hours. 

The impact of COVID has basically taken away from me a lot - such as my independence, it has put on hold some of my plans for next year and beyond, and because I am only a volunteer, I can't go to work at the moment. All of this sucks. However - there is one really big part of my life that has not been affected - and that is music. I can still play keyboard. I can still play Linnstrument (try Googling that). Of course I can still listen to music. But with this challenge, I am going to play 2.6 hours of music on the keyboard to hopefully raise some money. 

I owe so much to National Star over the last nine years - and this feels like the right time to give something back! I am planning to do this challenge on either 2nd or 3rd of May.