In September 2017 I won an award at the Pride of Tameside Sports
Awards for my Volunteering work at Mossley Running club. The award was named
after a most inspirational young man called Alex Williams.

Nearly 12 months to the date of winning the award , on
Sunday 7^th October myself and my friend are running the Chester
Marathon, and we are running it to raise funds and awareness for the charity founded
in Alex’s memory, The Believe and Achieve Trust.

This friend I mention is Hazel Homer. She appeared at my
house on the night of my 40^th Birthday earlier this year with a marathon
place as a birthday gift. Over the last 3 months We have trained together
shared hundreds of miles together lots of grumbles and lots more laughs. 

Hazel believed
in us both lets hope we achieve
on the day!

I say it will be my only marathon, others tell me it wont be
one thing for sure it will be my First! Hazels words are a marathon should be
about raising money, it’s a waste if not.

Please read about the trust and help us raise money and
awareness

About the Trust

When Alex was seven he contracted meningitis and ended up on life
support, fighting for his life. He survived but his life changed forever. He
ended up in a wheelchair with lots of after effects, but it didn’t stop Alex
from doing what he set his mind to.

Alex spent three nights a week volunteering for a disabled dance group
and was a sports ambassador for Tameside. He was also the Meningitis Trust’s
first ever Young Ambassador and was passionate about making everyone aware of
the symptoms of meningitis, spending every weekend giving out awareness cards.

Alex won
lots of awards and regularly appeared in the media. He proudly carried the
Olympic torch, the only person nominated more than once… in fact he was
nominated 24 times! Alex then spent a whole month going to schools in Tameside
talking to the children about his motto, “believe and achieve”. He really
believed that if you put your mind to it, you could achieve anything! The
children in the school loved it.

In August 2012,
Alex had a stroke as a direct result of the after-effects of meningitis and
passed away. Our devastation made us realise the only way forward was to carry
on his work, raising awareness of meningitis and support other young people
like Alex whose lives have been affected by this disease or who were coping
with challenges in their lives

http://believeandachieve.org.uk/