We’ve decided to run an annual charity fund-raising event.  This first year’s will be in support of local hospitals: East Kent Hospitals Charity (Registration No. 1076555).  This helps to pay for extra equipment and facilities in hospitals including the William Harvey (Ashford), the QEQM (Margate), Buckland (Dover), Royal Victoria (Folkestone) and Kent and Canterbury and others.

In April, my eldest son, Tom and his friend Karl are doing a charity ‘push bike’ ride (not an inch of Lycra in sight I understand!) from St Thomas’s Hospital in London to the QEQM Hospital in Margate in aid of this charity.  Karl has already set up a JustGiving page where anyone can donate (see below).  You can read Karl’s story of his twins, who spent 8 weeks in the special baby care unit there; as you can imagine Tom and his wife Shelly with their twins feel an affinity with Karl’s family.  Other cyclists are invited join in, if only part of the way!

We will still be using ‘old-fashioned’ fund raising sponsorship forms for those who are reticent about paying via a website, so at the Class Sessions and Members Supports, we’ll have these available.  You can also send a cheque payable to ‘Training Highway’ and we will pay these in and transfer (with your name) to a single paying in to the charity (plus our donation – see below).

For those of you who are happy to donate on the JustGiving website, you can click this link:

2018 Highway Charity

(always be wary of clicking links in emails if you’re unsure of the sender!)  There is a new document in the Learning & Support Centre that steps through the process of donating via the JustGiving website.  Click here:

8475 Donating to a charity via a website  (you will need to be logged in to the Learning & Support Centre)

If anyone would like to have the JustGiving website demonstrated at a Class Session or Member Support, our trainers and technicians will be happy to help.

Some longstanding Highway members will remember that many years ago the Birch family would take part in the Sandwich 10k run.  We raised reasonable amounts each year for charity.  I can remember that in our final year, our best, the total was over £1,300.  Quite a bit of that money came from donations from Highway members and volunteers.  There were no online donation websites then! 

We will publish the final amount raised and Highway itself will donate and additional 25p for every pound donated by Highway members.

Let’s hope that Highway and its members can raise a good amount for our local hospitals!