Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

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INTRODUCTION

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Hopefully most people who know me know that I love running and I love animals so I thought why not combine them? Whilst there are many worthy animal charities throughout the UK, the RSPCA is the only organisation with the power and ability to stop animal abuse from happening in the first place.

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ABOUT THE CHARITY

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Below are a few facts and figures about the RSPCA;

• The RSPCA get absolutely no funding from the government so rely 100% on donations.
• It costs the RSPCA over £120million every year to provide all of the services they offer.
• For every £1 given to use 82p is spent on animal welfare, 1p is spent on governance and 17p is spent raising the next £1
• They provide a 24-hour call centre for concerned members of the public to report an animal in distress - the cruelty line receives on average one call every 27 seconds.
• In 2016 they investigated 149,604 complaints of animal abuse (that's a rise of nearly 5% compared to the previous 12 months).
• They investigated more than 400 allegations of animal cruelty every day last year - a rise of nearly five percent compared to the previous 12 months.
• They've rescued and collected 129,602 animals.
• The RSPCA has just 287 full-time uniformed inspectors - each one covering on average an area of 172 square miles - compared to the police force which has a police officer covering an average area of half a square mile.

In terms of the campaigns they are working on;

• They're calling for an end to primates being kept as pets in the UK.
• They're calling for tougher sentences and restorative justice for those found guilty of animal welfare offences (at present someone found selling fake DVDs could get a higher sentence than a person found guilty of kicking a dog down the stairs).
• They're calling for the UK Government to launch an inquiry into the effectiveness of breed specific legislation.
• Work as an active member of the Cat Population Control Group to ensure the national cat neutering rate (93%) is maintained / increase and that unplanned litter rates decrease.
• As Brexit negotiations take place they will campaign to ensure standards are maintained, if not improved, for animal welfare.

I’m hoping to go and visit my local RSPCA shelter/hospital to talk to the staff and then post some pictures here so you can see the valuable work that you can help support.

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HOW TO SPONSOR OR HELP ME

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In order to help the RSPCA I am running in the London Marathon 2018. 26.2 miles (42K) through the streets of London in a time of (I hope) 4hrs 30mins. There are many ways you can help me achieve this goal;

TRAIN WITH ME – 

If you are ever in the area (Richmond, London) let me know and we can try and meet up for a training run. I’m hopefully going to be increasing my distance incrementally but always looking for training partners.

CHEER ME ON –

Closer to the date I hope to have a rough idea of where I will be to the course at various points. It would be amazing to see friendly faces dotted throughout the course to cheer me on!

SPONSOR ME – 

Last but not least, I need your sponsorship. As above the RSCPA rely 100% on donations so anything you can sponsor me for will help be it £1 or £100. I’m hoping to break past my target with your kind support.

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.

I’ll be posting various updates on my training and fundraising throughout this process