Remembering Amelia

On 2nd December 2019 at 32 weeks pregnant, Danielle and Karl found out that their little girl's heart had stopped beating, On 6th December at 5:39am their perfect little girl, Amelia was born, with her eyes closed and the image of both her mum and dad.

No family should ever go through this pain, all parents should get to leave the hospital with their beautiful babies - to care for them and watch them grow up, but sadly we know that this does not always happen. This devastating news reaches families everyday, with 1 in every 250 pregnancies in the UK ending in stillbirth, that is 8 babies everyday.

This is the reason Karl and Danielle are on a fundraising journey to raise money for two charities, these are SiMBA and Forget Me Not at the Ulster Hospital, all of whom helped us and families like us and we want to make sure they can continue to help others.  

Who are SiMba and what do they do?

SiMBA is a charity who honour babies who have died, been stillborn or miscarried.  SiMBA is about memories and helping parents to create memories with their baby using the precious items in the Memory Box that they provide.

They understand the importance of spending time with your baby and making memories together as a family in such a short period of time. The memory boxes include clay imprint kits, ink-less hand and footprint kit, birth acknowledgement certificates, blankets, a candle, wisp of hair box, a memory card and much more. 

Each memory box costs £40 to make and are invaluable to parents like Karl and Danielle. The other services SiMBA provide are support groups, online support, events that bring families together to honour their baby; educational study days to support healthcare professionals.

What is the Monkstown Spartans 24 Hour Summer Solstice team relay?

Inspired by our Energia 24 hour team of 2019, and with this year's same event cancelled we have decided to do our own team relay version.(safe and responsibly of course).

We have 12 runners all taking part in a 24 hour event, with 2 teams of 6 competing to cover as much distance as possible in 24 hours.

We will have each person running 2 x 2 hour blocks each, alternating between the 6 members, for 24 hours of continuous running per team, every minute from midday Saturday, to midday Sunday. 

In an alternative version we also have 24 runners, 4 teams of 6 taking part in 12 hours across both days, during daylight hours, substituting the 2 x 2 hours per runner for 2 x 1 hours per runner. 

96 hours of running in 24 hours!

Each team will donate £4 per person so we have £24 per team and we hope you might be able to support our extremely worthwhile cause.

Here are our amazing athletes taking on this challenge::

24 Hour Teams

Team 1 - Last of the Summer Wine

• Alan French
• Jock Mewha
• Billy Thompson
• Mark Limb
• Gary Wilson
• Kevin Moseley