We have ourselves an event

Our girls from the bush, Bron Dowling and Jackie Christopherson are staging a wonderful musical afternoon in Orange to kick start our extra fundraising initiatives in between training for the big event.

Orange, the gourmet food capital of the central west, is renowned for its stone fruits, agriculture and mining. Oranges are not grown here because the climate is too cool. Rather it gets it name from the Prince William of Orange who Major Thomas Mitchell named the town after in 1846. But these aficionados of life know how to show us city slickers one mighty good time.

Get your bush dancing shoes on and come and enjoy the delights of good food, fine wine and great company on a pleasant country afternoon.

Thank you to our wonderful hosts, Peter and Julie Mortimer, for offering your wonderful vineyard to stage the event. It wouldn’t be happening without you guys.

Thank you to Kate for assisting us produce this wonderful flyer.

Thank you to our fabulous line up of musicians, Into the Blue Jazz Quartet, Lynda Manwaring and November Shorn who have all donated their time to help with this.

And don’t forget the girls walking all-the-way across England. The majority of them will be there to meet you and discuss their motivation for undertaking this enormous fundraising challenge.  After the frivolity they’ll be up on the top of Mount Canobolas Sunday morning as they participate in the Great Volcanic Mountain Challenge as a great training walk.

So what are you waiting for.

Contact Bron or Jackie now and reserve your tickets for this wonderful event. Every dollar raised goes to Multiple Sclerosis Research Australia (MSRA)’s efforts to escalate research into finding the cause of, and ultimately a cure for MS.

A great excuse for a weekend away.

 

 

A star is born

England’s Jan/Feb 2014 MS Matters publication has written a feature on our one and only walker with MS – the inimitable, unbelievable, inspiring and just plain fantastic Debbie Bird.

Written in her own words one can only feel an overwhelming sense of privilege to be walking alongside this woman of real substance. Despite her challenges of living with MS Debbie is going to get over every fell, moor, ravine and beck this walk has to offer and all other participants are just going to make sure she does. It’s important to tell the world about this debilitating disease and have someone as inspirational as Debbie to tell it.

Please read her story  MSMatters – Help from down under – Jan-Feb 2014 and consider joining us for this fantastic adventure.

If you can’t join us then please dig deep and sponsor Debbie.

If you live in the UK go to her JustGiving Fundraising page.

If you live in Australia support her on her Kiss Goodbye to MS fundraising page.

Thank you for your support.

It’s a new dawn

A new beginning and way too early a start. See Helen on the right.  She’s teetering towards the group but not quite committed yet. I assure you she’ll be standing beside us on our next training walk. She’s already wearing the colours and espousing our team motto to give everyone currently living with this disease “Freedom from MS” as we take the “Kiss Goodbye to MS” campaign to British shores.  Come on Helen! We know you want to join us.

Registrations are now open for all categories – All-the-way, part of the way or just a day for Australian and UK residents. See Get Involved.  Remember it’s not about the electronic bibs which welcome you across the line and record your exact time. Like People living with MS (PwMS) our focus is on participating in life and doing the best we can despite what life throws at us.

Now in deference to Bron, who did run this walk (so she tells me), and I think to Denise, Pauline and Helen who semi-jogged or half ran (if either description differs to any degree) it is really about the finishing that actually counts.

And as Sal and Deb can attest to through firm photographic evidence above we did all finish.  And that’s what Wainwright’s Coast2Coast MS Walk is all about. Setting a fundraising target of $150,000, working towards reaching it and actually doing the hard yards. There are no prizes for finishing first, only a sense of overwhelming achievement when a group of like-minded determined people all finish what they set out to do. And ponder this, what if our fundraising dollars were the essential funds that unearthed the mystery of MS. How good an outcome would that be?

So if you think you want to raise money to “Kiss Goodbye to MS” forever and think you can finish a 25km daily walk or a 303km trek (12 days walking) and happen to be in the UK at the time we want you on our side. In the words of Lord Kitchener,

Or we need your support. All donations are gratefully accepted here. Thank you.