I'm Shaun Vos and I have Autism Spectrum Disorder and Schizoaffective (Bipolar) Disorder. I am trying to raise funds for our local mental health peer support group 'Support Together Southend'.
I have done a few 10K's and the Southend half marathon in 2017 raising funds for Rethink Mental Illness. My ultimate goal has been to run a full marathon and so I have set the April 7th 2019 Greater Manchester Marathon as my target.
I started Support Together Southend as a informal peer support group that is a place where people with mental illness can help each other to maintain good mental health and to move forward with life. After I approached Rethink Mental Illness for support, a team of volunteers got together to organise meetings which began in November 2017 for 2 hours on the 2nd Wednesday of every month from 7pm to 9pm in Southend on Sea. The group has grown to having a core base of members who attend often with new members trialling the group regularly.
The groups co-ordinators work voluntarily to organise and make decisions for the group with the group's involvement in partnership with Rethink Mental Illness. The group's Co-ordinators are presently me, Isla Barton, Sherry Fuller and our newest Ed (a personal trainer).
In addition of our monthly meetings we have been organising additional events where it is deemed to be helpful. We had an extra meeting on December 28th 2018 which was our Post Christmas Social & Raffle with party food for the group. We also had an extra event on Time to Talk Day on the 7th February 2019 6pm to 9pm.
We are a self funded group for the most part so any funds raised on this page will be donated to Rethink Mental Illness (our charity) who will then forward it all to our groups bank account ensuring it's viability in 2019 and beyond.
- Small donations would be enough to pay for teas, coffees and biscuits for our peer group meetings.
- £20.00 Would be enough credit to cover our groups phone for 6 months.
- £30.00 would approximately pay for our costs (like venue hire) for our monthly meetings a month.
Thanks to your support thus far we are starting 'active' activities from the 30th March with a initial 8 week schedule of Rounders, Table Tennis, Cycling and some Circuit Training with Ed's skills. The biggest challenge for this will be funding it followed by encouraging individuals to commit to becoming more active. We envisage doing this for at least 12 months and longer.
