A New month

Event Promotion

Us with (from L-R) Linda Entwistle, hotel administrator, Sam Jackson, hotel team member, Kerian Barnes, Operations Director, GM Steve Walmsley, revenue manager Darren Schembri and compliance manager Tim O’Brien.

April has arrived and we are now less than 3 months away from setting off from Liverpool on 9th July. A lot has happened in March; we have planned the route, although the actual route itself is pretty much set in stone, (well, more like set in water with it following the canal!).

We have been really pleased to get great support from hotels and B&Bs along the way, especially the Holiday Inn Express hotels in Burnley and Leeds. They have got right behind our venture, bringing on board (no pun intended) Nicolette from Flex Media, the group's PR company. We met with Nicolette and Kerian, the Operations Director for Starboard Hotels, who run the two hotels, and we are excited at the prospects of having such enthusiastic people to help.

Also in March we met with Caroline Lewis, the dynamo fundraiser from Cancer Support Yorkshire who never sees problems, only opportunities. Caroline is our link to the charity and she is talking with Andy Goodall from the Woolly Sheep Inn in Skipton about putting on a charity fundraiser on the evening of 12th July when we will be saying there. More of that as things develop.

March also saw a new member of the team - we now have the services of a support vehicle which will be our back-up rather than having to strap everything to the kayak and to help with towpath fundraising. More about this in a separate post.

March did not see the start of training in earnest, that can only start when we have the kayak from Leeds Canoe Club which hopefully we will have in a week or two. In the meantime Andrew continues with his gym workouts and I, being a tight Yorkshire lad and not wanting to join the gym, now have a plan B for transport. The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the canoe that wouldn't fit in or on my available transport in my earlier post is actually an inflatable so April will see the first of my ventures out on the canal. More of this also in a separate post.

Finally, thanks to Silsden Boats who have agreed to allow us to park the car at their boatyard while we canoe off toward Skipton as part of our imminent and rigorous training regime - I have suggested that we canoe as far as the Bay Horse at Skipton, then return to Silsden, a 10-mile trip out and back.