Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page. Us being me, Yvette Elcock, a volunteer at Flicka, and my colleague who works at Flicka, Debra Clarke. Here's a little bit about us.

As some of you will know, I have been talking about, and working towards, retirement for a number of years now (about 10!). I finally achieved it having moved through the part-time to fully retired route over the last two years.

During this period I looked at what voluntary work I might do to fill some of my time - not that I ever seem to have too much of this going free. The oft uttered refrain of "How on earth did I have time to work, especially during my later international opportunities?" is certainly true for me.

Luckily I found The Flicka Foundation Donkey Sanctuary about 18 months ago and I love working behind the scenes to support Debra Clarke and the rest of the Flicka team. I find the donkeys have an amazing, almost spiritual, impact on me.

Here is a link to the wonderful work that they do: https://www.flickafoundation.org.uk/

And as for Debra, well, if you are a Flicka supporter in any way you may remember that she completed a crazy run last year - running 55km around London to celebrate being 55 and to raise funds for Flicka. She raised around £5000 in total. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

She wasn't intending on doing anything crazy this year but then realised that it was Flicka's 30th birthday on 31st August, and so, we thought in one of those office jokey conversations "What about us completing 30 miles of swimming?" She initially thought about doing it in one go - I did not! - but then decided a mile a day might be more manageable. We persuaded each other over the course of a few days - crazy colleagues that we are - to commit to the crazy swim.

So from 1 August please think of us getting up early to get the miles in at the Merchants Manor, Falmouth for Debra (and big thanks for them for allowing Debra to use their pool), and Helston Sports Centre for me where I'm a member.

Simply put:

- 30 days of swimming for both of us

- Sufficient lengths at our local swimming pool to achieve 1500m or c.1mile per swim. This is 60 lengths for me and 125 (how will she keep count!!) for Debra.

- to swim 30 miles

- for the 30th celebrations.

Now, I am not a fast swimmer so each day's session with take around 75 minutes in the pool.....please help me make it worthwhile for the donkeys not withstanding the difficult times we find ourselves in.

What have we let ourselves in for? Please support us if you can as this is quite a challenge for both of us. Help us do it for our wonderful donkeys.

We wanted to set an ambitious target nonetheless and so hope our family, friends, past team members, clients and supporters might consider supporting us to swim our way to (at least?) £5000 (a mix of breast stroke and front crawl in case you are wondering!) and make a sizeable contribution to the wonderful work of the sanctuary. "Sanctuary - a promise, not a place" is the underpinning philosophy of this extraordinary charity.

So,

- £3 is the equivalent to a one-month donkey adoption

- £30 is the equivalent to an annual donkey adoption

- £300 (I know I might be dreaming here...) would contribute towards a significant piece of equipment for the on site donkey hospital.

We intend to post at least weekly updates on the impact of this intention on us.

If you can, thank you so much. If you can't, no problem, perhaps you could spread the news instead.

And those of you in corporate life still, is there somewhere/someone in your organisation that might be able to offer an organisational donation and really make a difference to the community of donkeys and our wonderful supporters and visitors.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

PLEASE NOTE:

If you are able to support us and click on the 'Give Now' button, you will see some example amounts come up - One-off, Monthly, Crypto and £30, £50, £150, £200 as amounts and then an empty box. These are preset by JustGiving and we are unable to find a way to change them at the moment.

Please use the One-off button and type an amount you are comfortable with in the empty box.

Every little helps!