Marathon Fundraising!

As some of you may be aware, I (Rebecca) have been training for quite a few months to run the Dublin City Marathon on Monday 27th October this year. This will be my first ever marathon and I therefore I thought that I would do some fundraising at the same time.

The cause I have chosen to support is the Santa Flight which the company that I work for, RBS Aviation Capital (RBS-AC), arranges for Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin, Dublin every year. This is a flight which we arrange in conjunction with Aer Lingus where we take 70 children, who are generally struggling with on-going illnesses or disabilities, and their carers on a 90 minute flight over Dublin in search of Santa. Santa boards the plane mid-flight (because he is magical and can do that!) and proceeds to give the children presents and chat to them. Throughout all of this we have clowns and RBS-AC staff (including myself last year!) dressed as elves entertaining the kids with Christmas carols and fun games. For a lot of the kids this is the highlight of a hard year which has seen them in and out of hospital and for some this is the first time they have ever been on an airplane which of course just adds to the excitement. Of course although RBS-AC arranges all of this and contributes a very large sum to the cause, we continue to raise money for it as all proceeds go directly to Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital.

Although I am asking for donations, I thought that I would make it a little bit more interesting and for every €10 donated you are given the option to submit a guess as to what time you think I will complete the 26.2miles/42kms in (down to the second). The closest guess will win a bottle of champagne and a bottle of tequila which I have donated as a prize. Should someone not in Ireland win the prize then we will come to some sort of arrangement if we cannot get the booze to you!

In order to make it easy to donate, I have set up a website at www.johnnynbex.co.nr/marathon where you can submit your guess and donate your money through Paypal (you don’t need a Paypal account to do this – credit card works too). This site will also give you a bit of info on my running to help you make a slightly more educated guess.

Check it out and please give generously!

Less than 5 weeks to go!!