Singing For Water

[caption id="attachment_6049" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Sing for Water West - at the morning's rehearsal[/caption]

Blues skies and wall to wall sunshine met our choir of 1,000 voices all gathered for Sing for Water West in Bristol on Saturday. At least 39 community choirs were represented, with wonderful names like Sing Aloud, The Wiltshire Wailers (my choir - yay!) and Gasworks.

The geographical spread of choristers included Devon, Portsmouth, Abergavenny, Stroud and Birmingham, so we covered more than just the West! Everyone wore blues and greens to represent the watery theme of our fundraising and songs.

The hot sunshine meant we were soon queuing to top up our water supplies from the stand pipes provided - a neat reminder of why we had gathered to support WaterAid. Thankfully our water was clean, cool and available just a few yards away, not the dirty, tepid water often situated miles away from the billion people who have no choice but to use it.

You may be wondering from the above picture if anyone turned up to hear us. Well, I did spot Mark Charlton and his family amongst the crowd, but I was too busy singing away in the afternoon to take any pictures! However, the Bristol Evening Post were there to capture some of the atmosphere - the last picture in their gallery of 10 photos gives you a fair idea of the size of both the audience and choir :)

Two years ago, 850 of us sang and raised over £50,000 for WaterAid. Hopefully when all the monies are in and totted up, we'll have easily topped that figure after such an exhilarating day!

Update: Someone's asked who's reporting on this story - I can reveal it was yours truly, your Community Link-Up editor aka smithsnews :)

Cake and Drag News!

On Saturday Rowan House's Jennifer Taylor and friends turned out in great numbers and a variety of outfits for Swindon in Drag 2013! The photos show they had a lot of fun and I'm sure the warm weather helped to make it a great evening out on the town.

And Jennifer's efforts to reach her £1,000 target for Cancer Research UK continue! She's bringing in cakes today and all donations in exchange for a cake are welcome :)

Swindon in Drag 2013

[caption id="attachment_6037" align="aligncenter" width="640"] A look back at 2012 - I wonder how things went on Saturday...[/caption]

By the time you read this, plenty of participants from Rowan House will have taken part in Saturday's Swindon in Drag event for 2013.

Just like last year, Jennifer Taylor is the organiser and sent us the above picture from last year as a trailer for this year's event. Sadly there wasn't time to bring you the news ahead of Saturday, but I'm sure Jennifer won't mind if I use her words to describe what was in store...

The time of year has come around again where me and my friends make fools of ourselves, dress up in clothing of the opposite gender, and attempt to raise as much money as possible for Cancer Research UK :)

We’ve had some brilliant years previously but we’ve never managed to break the £1000 mark and we’re super determined to get there this year!! Any donation you can make via our Just Giving page will be hugely appreciated by myself and my friends. 

I also found out recently that someone from my past that had a huge influence on me as a teenager has recently died of cancer, so I’ll be dedicating my efforts to Stuart Holland, the man who gave me my first job at WHSmiths in Marlborough when I was 16! He even left me in charge of the store on Sundays when I was 17… brave man!

Thanks for your support!

I hope it went well Jennifer and you all had a fun evening raising pots of cash! 

Michael Joins Swim Britain

It's a while since we've heard what Michael Jamieson's up to, so I thought you'd like to know a little more about a major swimming initiative he's involved with :)

Swim Britain is a relay event which takes place in August and September. The idea is to get teams of four adults (all over 16 years of age) or a family (with up to three children aged 8 to 15) together to swim a 4,000 metre relay. Each team member swims 4 x 250 metre relay legs, which makes it very achievable for most swimmers.

This is a major Olympic legacy event which aims to get half a million of us swimming more regularly.

The relays take place in 10 venues around the UK (hence the differing dates), plus there's also the chance to sample an open water swimming experience in the lake at Blenheim Palace. This latter option is for adult teams only.

As well as the swim itself, there's also the opportunity to benefit from 4 x 30 minute swimming coaching sessions at a pool local to where you live. The Swim Britain website also has a set of 20 training sessions, plus nutrition advice and other top tips designed to take you from just 400 metres of easy swimming through to being more than capable of managing 1,000 metres.

Can't swim front crawl? Don't worry, there are top tips and training for swimming either front crawl or breaststroke, or a mixture of both.

Can't get to one of the 10 nominated pools? Then there's the DIY option, which means your team completes the relay on your own at a local pool. I think this option is also adaptable for solo swimmers wishing to take part in an 'unofficial' capacity. NB this option doesn't include coaching, but you can select to receive motivational emails from your favourite swimming star.

Can't get a team together? You can still sign-up to secure a place.

Think 4,000 metres is too far? Then the Little SwimBritain 2,000 metre option is perfect for those less confident in the pool.

And at least one lucky team will get Michael as their team member! NB other Olympic or Paralympic stars and David Walliams are available ;)

Terri Gets Her Boots On

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="200"] Part of the stone circle at Avebury[/caption]

Not content with providing support for the Magnificent 7's successful completion of the National Three Peaks Challenge, now it's Terri Baylis's turn to put her trekking boots on!

This time she and her good friend Hayley Rogers are tackling a 40 mile walk along the Ridgeway on the weekend of 13th & 14th July.  They're setting off from Avebury in Wiltshire on Saturday and are set to finish in Streatley, Oxfordshire on Sunday.

Like the Magnificent 7, they're supporting the Joshua Flynn Fund. Their Just Giving page is here. 


Good luck Terri and Hayley!

Come, Listen to the Choir

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="320"] Sing for Water West in 2009[/caption]

Bristol Harbourside is the place to be on Saturday afternoon (6th July 2013) when Sing for Water West comes to town!

A massed choir of 1,000 voices drawn from community choirs across the south-west will gather to perform watery themed songs to raise money for WaterAid.

Busking starts at lunchtime when the big choir splits into its individual ones to show off their own talents after the morning's rehearsal .

At 1pm, the Tropical Discovery Marquee opens for kids of all ages and then the singers assemble at 3pm for THE BIG SING! The song selection includes hits by Rihanna and Carly Simon, plus gospel, African and Georgian vibes.

At 4pm the WOMAD stage opens, with 3 world artists set to perform. To round things off Harbour cruises on The Matthew are available at 12pm, 1pm and 4.30pm.

Your blog's editor, plus Group Communications Director Mark Charlton's wife will be singing their socks off on the day! It's a wonderfully relaxed, family oriented event and it would be great to see you there!

If you're wondering what a choir of 1,000 sounds like, take a look at the video here from Sing for Water West in 2011. That was a choir of 850 - 1,000 will be awesome!

Walking the Wards

Rowan House's Claire Philips-High reports on her recent fundraising walk in the grounds of Wilton House for Salisbury hospital's Stars Appeal...

Walk for Wards was such a great experience and I’m still aching, I fear I am definitely unfit! My dad was really touched that we did the walk to raise money for the hospital that looked after him and it was fantastic to walk with the thousands of other fundraisers who also had their own personal reason for raising money for the charity. This year’s walk had the highest number of participants and enough money was raised to buy Salisbury hospital the much-needed CT scanner, which is just brilliant!

I would most certainly do it again, the walk was actually really enjoyable and the grounds very beautiful, the organisers even put on a little buffet for the walkers afterwards which was so nice and definitely needed as we all worked up quite an appetite.

Thanks Claire - that buffet sounds like it was very welcome! Note that Claire sent in her report last week, so hopefully all the aches have disappeared by now :)