MISSION ACCOMPLISHED! 14 Wainwright Fells duly climbed! Feeling exhausted but exhilarated. Huge thanks to everyone who has supported us. And, whenever you are reading this, the wonderful but often undervalued work of the Koestler Trust will always need your help: please KEEP DONATING...

The Koestler Trust urgently needs help to respond to an unprecedented number of artworks from prisoners and secure patients.  Please sponsor Neil and me on a hill-walking challenge - so that talented offenders can receive the recognition and feedback they deserve, inspiring them to a better future.

The 2014 Koestler Awards have attracted a record 8,700+ entries - up 19% on last year. The Koestler Arts Centre at Wormwood Scrubs is packed with an astonishing array of art - in 61 artforms from 350 prisons and other secure settings across the country.  

Every painting and poem is a cry for hope.  And the Koestler Awards are a simple, incredibly powerful way of encouraging offenders and secure patients to positive new directions in life.  

The surge in this year's entries means that the usual number of Koestler Awards can't keep up.  Dozens of gifted entrants will go without appreciation for their hard work and skill, unless the Koestler Trust can quickly create more prizes, certificates and feedback, ready for when the awards are issued in September.

So my civil partner Neil and I have decided to spend our summer holiday doing what we can to help.  Over 14 days in the Lake District, 19 July - 2 August, we're going to climb 14 of the mountain peaks described by the Lakeland walker and writer Alfred Wainwright.  

Please, please help us on our way. This is such an under-appreciated and important cause.  Your support will make a real difference - and mean a great deal to us.  No contribution is too small.  And, of course, we hope that some of you will be as generous as you know we can. We've set a target of £7,000 - or £500 per peak!  But the Koestler Trust needs whatever we can raise - so, whether we miss, meet or surpass the target, please keep giving.

It goes without saying that the weather in the Lakes is always gorgeous, but on the off chance that it rains, we'll still keep toiling up those fells. Our sodden doggedness will be nothing compared with the determination that many offenders show in overcoming the most oppressive social backgrounds to turn their lives around. But we hope it might at least inspire you to give us and them a little hand.

From Neil and me: thank you so much.

Tim

(Tim Robertson, Chief Executive, The Koestler Trust)