Thank you for coming to visit my Just Giving page.

I hope that you have your own great memories from London 2012. Some of those memories might be fading now, but I want to ask you to reach even further back to 2005, and the moment when London won the right to host the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.  Everyone had anticipated that Paris would win but, it’s generally agreed that what swung the vote in our favour was the promise to use the inspirational power of the Games to inspire children and young people – not only in the UK, but around the world.

In 2009, I became involved – on a volunteer basis – in International Inspiration, a wonderful programme set up to keep that promise, which has used sport to INvolve, INclude and INspire more than 15 million children in 21 countries.

Inspired by this, in 2010 I convened a brainstorm to think about how to bring more of the same magic to young people in the East End of London. The result was the FRE Flyers, a new kind of multisport club for teenagers, which already runs hockey and tennis programmes in Newham, and will start activities on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Spring 2014.

Last, but definitely not least, I’ve just agreed to devote my working life – as well as my volunteer energy to the cause of changing young peoples’ lives through sport. I’ve joined Sported, the charity set up to support and champion community organisations all around the UK, which are using sport to help disadvantaged young people.

When Olympic Champion, Katherine Grainger, decided to run the London Marathon in aid of International Inspiration, I wanted to challenge her to a race, but quickly realised that my knees can’t manage 26 miles on the road. So I’m going to reverse roles with Katherine; on April 13, I’ll sit down on a rowing machine, and ROW 42.195 kilometres. Any money that you kindly contribute will be shared three ways between the global initiative (International Inspiration); the national (Sported) and the local (FRE Flyers). Thank you for your help.

For more information about the great work of these organisations, please visit:

www.internationalinspiration.org

www.sported.org.uk