Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I'll be participating in the London Marathon this year for one simple reason: to support Citizens Advice Bristol. I'll be doing a bit of running and a bit of walking as I'm not yet fit enough to run the whole way. Training has been hard but satisfying and I am keen to raise as much money as I can for Citizens Advice Bristol.

Many of you may not know much about Citizens Advice - we offer holistic advice on a wide range of issues, including debt management and accessing housing and benefits. And even those of you who are familiar with our service may not know that we are a charity and are therefore struggling to meet our costs in the face of increasing demand. So support from donors is absolutely critical to our ability to help people in Bristol.

Over the past 12 months we've helped almost 5,500 people with over 29,000 advice issues. Trained and qualified volunteers, overseen by experienced staff, deliver almost all of our support, helping us to keep our costs down.

It costs about £1000 to train each volunteer so if I'm successful in fundraising, we will be able to train an additional 3 volunteers who will, in turn, help 100s of people each year.

Please give if you can - I would really appreciate your help in reaching my goal of £3000.