This video is of my talk at the party night fundraiser, which was on to raise funds to support the financial side of GBR 30/30 Challenge for Diabetes UK and JDRF. It was filmed by my mother and some bits didn’t come out, so had to have some serious editing with parts missing, but you’ll get the gist of it!
Diabetes Fundraiser
It was a very good night at The Sportsman in Slade Green and I’m very grateful to the venue for their support. Many friends and family and friends of friends and friends of family friends gathered… if that makes any sense… and everybody present on the night showed great support for me ahead of one crazy, crazy challenge that is soon coming up!
My talk was about my life generally with diabetes. Although I did not plan out a speech properly, I thought it good to speak from the heart and had a few photos on a screen for people to see. There were only two other diabetics present, both with Type 1, Nick (who is my age and caught it from me in school…) and young Callum, who is now 7 with his birthday a few days after the party! Callum is also a Type 1 diabetic and now on the pump, his family are very supportive of him and it was great to see them come along. Maybe my talks of what I have achieved in terms of diabetes might not be a great help to the majority of the people in attendance on the night, in consideration to the fact that they were not diabetic, but if it can help but one young lad out and show that diabetes cannot prevent him from doing anything he wants to in life, especially not playing any sports, then that’s my job done. That’s why I am running this challenge!
We had some great prizes up for grabs on a raffle which raised a lot on the night. Sir Steve Redgrave had signed a couple of photos for me and also a copy of his latest book: ‘Greatest Olympic Moments’. Katherine Grainger, the veteran Gold medallist who put on a great and emotional show at the London 2012 games, signed a vest top for me. A few celebrities had signed some photographs too, Jasmine Harman, Dermot O’Leary, Caroline Flack and Kirsty Gallacher – with thanks to Jonny at John Noel Management and all the mentioned TV stars for that. There were also x2 free tickets to the UCMMA show on the 6th April at Troxy in London and a Water Bottle and supplement of Liquid Collagen from GBR Nutrition. The Bexleyheath Marriott Hotel, former employers of mine a few years ago, provided some free Gym, Spa and Swimming passes in their Leisure Department and we also had some bottles of wine and giant chocolates up for grabs too.
After the party some were back at my house until 4am, bearing in mind I haven’t had a drop of alcohol this year (apart from one occasion in January) to build my fitness and kept to this on the night. The people who were there were my Aunt Jayne, who I saw two years ago and hadn’t seen for many years before that either and my Mum and her hadn’t seen each other for 5 years, she had driven all the way up from Somerset to surprise me! My Uncle Alan and Cousin Amie who live down in Broadstairs, and my rather merry Granddad Bruce who was continuing his merriness until the earliest hours of the morning – even after we managed to get him home as he phoned me at 5.30am, sounding furthermore merrier!
Although that doesn’t sound much, I never thought that I’d see all of those and my parents in my house in SE London in the same room, at 4am in the morning, getting on so well together in my life! Me having diabetes probably is the reason that this happened…
The night raised £511 which has since grown to £666.80 – I’m not too sure the 666 figure is a good sign but that was a fantastic amount to get raised when I was targeting and seriously doubting beforehand that I’d raise £500. (this also doesn’t include the additional £100 we paid for expenses so would have been £100 more too!)
A wholehearted massive Thank You to everybody that helped out and to all of those who came along from me!
Gav