Scots Grey’s Anatomy actor, Kevin McKidd is to release ‘The Speyside Sessions’, a charity album of folk music this Friday (15th June) with help from friends Bryan Tolland (Del Amitri) and producer/composers, Nick Lloyd-Webber and James D Reid.
The album, which consists of 14 traditional folk songs, also features performances from Paul Anderson, one of the finest Scots fiddlers of his generation, as well as Bryan Tolland and a wealth of Scottish vocal and musical talent. The album was recorded during an intense week at Hogmanay in a house in Moray, on the banks of the River Spey. Kevin recruited an army of local musicians, as well as friend Angus Robertson MP and Scots guitarist, John McCallum. Iain Robertson, McKidd’s Small Faces co-star has also acted as photographer and promoter in between rehearsals for his one man show ‘Angels’ at the Traverse theatre during the Edinburgh Fringe.
The proceeds of the album will go to charity Save the Children, which Kevin regularly fundraises for. Last year he took part in a sponsored fast-a-thon, as well as completing the Tough Mudder challenge – a royal marine styled obstacle course.
He has lent his support for the venture saying: “I’ve heard it and it’s really special. A great talented bunch of musicians playing Scottish tunes. Kevin has pulled off something great”.
Kevin, who originally hails from Elgin, has recorded the album to pay tribute to his grandfather, who often sang traditional Scots songs to him as child but says “the most important thing is that it’s all for Save the Children”. He added “What’s great about Scottish folk music is that it’s a niche market, but hopefully I’ll be able to get people listening to this that wouldn’t normally”.
The Speyside Sessions are described as ‘a love letter to Scotland’ and is a mixture of traditional ballads, reels and more rousing crowd pleasers. Fans of Grey’s Anatomy heard Kevin’s vocal talents last year, including Snow Patrol’s Chasing Cars, on a special musical episode of the series.
Kevin did guitar and vocals on most of the tracks on the album and when asked about his favourite tracks, said: I love them all but I feel most proud of ‘These are my Mountains’ and ‘The Muckin’ o’ Geordie’s Byre. On ‘Muckin.. I feel proud because just to get through the song without bursting out laughing is an achievement. It is a very funny song to perform.”
Douglas Hamilton, Save the Children’s Head of Scotland said:
“The album sounds totally unique and we’re honoured that Kevin has chosen to do this for Save the Children. What’s fantastic is that it was entirely Kevin’s own idea and we know that it hasn’t been easy to organise. It’s not just the album but everything else he’s done over the past few years for the charity, raising huge amounts of money, as well as our profile – and it’s brilliant to have him here in Scotland”.
The Speyside Sessions will be touring this summer, for more information, please see – http://thespeysidesessions.com
Amazon MP3 Store –
Harrogate mum sets up celebrity football match with local club to raise money for vulnerable babies and children
Harrogate mum, Manraj Sanghera, who set up a Bliss Family Group in Harrogate last year, is now raising her game and has joined forces with Harrogate Town AFC to set up a celebrity football match on Sunday, 30 September 2012 at Harrogate Town AFC, in Harrogate.
The Bliss Select XI and Harrogate XI teams will be made up of ex-premiership footballers, Emmerdale cast members, Leeds United Legends and five local Dad’s of premature babies in aid of Bliss, for babies born too soon, too small or too sick, and Shine, which provides practical support to help individuals and families affected by spina bifida and hydrocephalus.
Every year around 80,000 babies are born premature or sick and in need of specialist hospital care, money raised will enable Bliss to continue its vital work to help premature and sick babies and their families across the UK.
Gareth Southgate (retired England player and ex-manager of Middlesbrough FC) will be the Bliss team Captain and Danny Mills (former-England and Leeds United player) also playing for Bliss, are just some of the household names set to play in the charity match in the autumn.
Danny says: “I am really proud to be taking part in the charity match for Bliss and Shine this autumn. Ever since I lost my son Archie to Spina Bifida ten years ago, I have worked closely with, and fundraised for Shine, who launched the first memorial challenge in my son’s name. Having experienced tragedy and the worry of two premature babies but getting through it by the amazing support we received from staff on the unit, I cannot think of two better causes. Any bit of fundraising and raising awareness I can do for these charities that provide care for sick babies and children, makes me feel I am doing my bit for Archie. Anyone can give something back, no matter how small, it really does help.”
Manraj was inspired to raise awareness of Bliss, after her three children were born premature and sick. Her first child Raj-Arjun was born at 37 weeks. He is now severely disabled after suffering a massive brain haemorrhage at birth. Her second child Simran was born at 29 weeks, weighing a mere 1Ib 11oz and her third child Priya was born at 34 weeks.
Manraj says: “I am really pleased to be organising this match in aid of Bliss and Shine. Since the birth of our son Raj-Arjun nine years ago, and two premature daughters Simran and Priya, we have spent many weeks in and out of neonatal intensive care and special care units in Harrogate and Leeds. If it were not for the dedication and support of the staff our children would not be alive.
‘Charities such as Bliss and Shine allow for a wider support mechanism for parents in such traumatic circumstances. We have received this vital support and feel it is time to give something back. It is for this reason we dedicate this match to everyone who has worked tirelessly to support us. It is also a great way to get dads involved who can sometimes be forgotten, when lots of the support is offered to mums and babies.
Other footballers set to play include: Colin Cooper, Nigel Quashie, Nigel Martyn, David Prutton, Colin Hunter and local Radio Presenters from Stray FM.
Tad Nowakowski from Harrogate Town AFC says: “Harrogate Town AFC are delighted to be involved in supporting Bliss and allowing our facilities to be used to host this charity soccer match. We are looking forward to seeing local dads playing on our new pitch which is being levelled and re-seeded later this year.”
Chief Executive Andy Cole from Bliss says: “The celebrity football match is set to be a really successful fundraising event. We are extremely grateful to Manraj for organising the event and the money raised will help Bliss’ work to support babies and their families during an incredibly difficult and stressful time.”
Tickets are now on sale, £12.50 for adults, and £7.50 children (Under 12) Under 3 free. For further ticket sellers’ information, log onto www.harrogatetownafc.co.uk or www.bliss.org.uk or e-mail: first4charityevents@gmail.co.uk all proceeds will go to Bliss, Shine, Harrogate SCBU and LGI Peter Congdon Unit (NICI).
Esther Rantzen writes for yano on the launch of ChildLine and the way it has been at the forefront of pioneering the plight of children, who are in danger in their own homes.
Times have changed so much. Back in 1986, soon after ChildLine was launched, one broadsheet newspaper called ChildLine “the phone line that encourages children to sneak on their parents”! As if ChildLine was a threat to good parents and happy family life. As if children were being encouraged to inform on their parents, like those in Mao’s China. When in fact over the last 25 years we have learned that even given the safety of a confidential phone-line, children will go to great lengths to protect their families. As one child who contacted ChildLine because she was terrified that she was pregnant by her father said, “It was my job to suffer.”
But 25 years ago was a very different time. Then most people had no idea that some children could be suffering terrible abuse or neglect behind the net curtains in perfectly respectable homes. When, in October 1986 we revealed that fact in a special programme called Childwatch which launched ChildLine, it was such a painful message that the temptation was to blame the messenger – a tabloid newspaper labelled our programme “the most dangerous show on television”.
I believed then, and believe now, that the only way to tackle a problem is to admit it exists, and try to resolve it. On that first night, when we opened our phone lines ChildLine received 50,000 attempted phone calls. Buoyed up by the children’s faith in us, and by the fact we knew from the start we were saving lives and preventing abuse, we continued to publicise ChildLine’s work and the Freephone number 0800 1111, and to expand and develop as fast as we could. Now 25 years later we have 12 bases around the country, have created on-line counselling services, and, wonderful news, at last we are meeting the huge demand from children. At last we can now answer every single child who needs us.
Over the last 25 years we have helped almost 2.7 million children, and have tracked huge changes in young people’s lives. Back then, for many children the only way to contact ChildLine safely was to run to a phone box. Some put their lives at risk, escaping from their homes in the middle of the night to ring us. And because so many thousands tried to get through, and we simply hadn’t enough money, or volunteer counsellors, or phone lines to answer them all, many of them failed to get through. When they did, I remember speaking to children who described abuse that had been going on for ten or fifteen years – as long as they could remember. Now, the good news is that half the sexually abused children who contact ChildLine do so within a month of it starting. And it seems from our statistics that sexual and physical abuses are happening less often. I believe ChildLine has played its part as a deterrent. Abusers know now that abused children can ask for help.
Mobile phones have been a crucial liberation for children. Now they can ring us from anywhere, at any time. So has the internet. There are some problems, like self-harm, or depression, which so destroy a child’s self confidence that they dare not attempt to talk about them. So they contact us on-line instead – and our counsellors have developed the skills to counsel them effectively via the internet. Now sexual abuse has been replaced as the most common problem, it is still in the top five, but at the very top of the list now are serious family problems. This makes us at ChildLine wonder what has happened to our family life that causes so many children so much unhappiness? At the moment we are analysing those calls, to try and find some answers.
ChildLine has never been a threat to good parents. But it may reveal ways we can support our children and protect them from pain more effectively. It did 25 years ago. It does so still today.
This week was quite a shocker for celebrity news. Katie Holmes is divorcing Tom Cruise after five years together citing ‘irreconcilable differences’. Cruise has hit back by filing for divorce in California, a move which will hinder Holmes’ chance of full custody of their daughter, Suri.
Katie’s lawyer, Jonathan Wolfe, confirmed the news and told People magazine: “This is a personal and private matter for Katie and her family.
“Katie’s primary concern remains, as it always has been, her daughter’s best interest.”
The couple married 2006 in an Italian castle after dating for only two months.
Cruise jumper up and down on Oprah’s couch stating ‘I’m in love’ in 2005. Watch the video.
Adele has announced she is pregnant via her website.
“I’m delighted to announce that Simon and I are expecting our first child together, I wanted you to hear the news direct from me, obviously we’re over the moon and very excited but please respect our privacy at this precious time. Yours always, Adele xx”
Adele’s 36-year-old boyfriend Simon Konecki runs the charity Drop4Drop. They have been together since January.
I met Vanessa in the City. She is fashionable, warm, friendly and passionate. I came to interview her about her amazing site for women in the City: wearethecity.com. A place where women can find help and advice with their work, life and careers.
Vanessa Vallely: “There are three core values that I had in mind when I set it up that hold true. One, that we provide a platform for female entrepreneurs to get their products to market on the basis that it fits into our members’ demographic. We do that by taking away hefty advertising fees for them and to give female entrepreneurs a bit of a leg up. We are also a conduit to charities to get to high net worth women. We will actively promote any network or any organisation that is free that will develop skills for women. So probably 40% of what we do on the website falls into that value set, that is really important to me.”
Frost: First of all, what are you wearing? You look great.
VV: “I am wearing a Britt Lintner dress with my normal Gucci shoes and scarf. She is a fantastic designer. She set herself up a couple of years ago doing dresses and managed to get her collection into Harrods, although she’s taking some time out because she’s raising some small children.”
When did you know you wanted to go into business?
“I left school at 16 with just a couple of GSCEs and headed out into the city with 15 pence and a bag of ambition because I wanted to change my lifestyle and my mum’s as well. We come from a very socially and economically-challenged background, so I knew that I wanted to be successful, I knew that the financial district was two miles away from where I lived and that was where I was going to start.
“I actually realised I wanted to develop the website three years ago due to my frustration with not having a site that covered everything in my life. There needs to be a bit of lifestyle in there because let’s not hide it, I am a woman. I need to eat, I need to have my hair done, I need to find a dentist. But I also wanted to upskill myself outside of my corporate environment, so how was I going to that?
“Women’s networks, courses I could go on – for me it’s frustrating. If I Googled that information, I would spend hours on the internet. I wanted to find it all on one site so my husband said, ‘Why don’t you create a website for women?’ and we built it together.
“So that’s when I knew that I wanted to work for myself. I love my corporate job and run the website outside of work.
“My aspirations in 10 years time are to be the CEO of a charity, because I do a lot for charity still.”
Tell me about being a Pearly Queen?
“It has been in my family for 100 years. The Pearly Kings and Queens were started by an Orphan called Henry Croft and he used to sew buttons on his suit, he was a rat-catcher in the markets.
“If you think about London 100-odd years ago it was still markets, no superstores or anything. So he used to hang around the markets with the costermongers who were the apple sellers. They used to sew buttons on their suits and were called flash boys.
“If the costermongers were down on their luck, their entire family was affected if someone was ill. There was no social security then, so he used to raise money in the markets for his fellow orphans. Eventually he was so much in demand, he couldn’t be at all the markets, so he made head Pearly Kings and Queens of each of the 20 boroughs of the London of the time and they’d raise money for individuals in that borough. My granddad was pearly King of East London and he passed that title to my father and my father passed it to me.
“I have been a Pearly Queen since I was three years old. I was Pearly Queen of Hoxton until this year when I gave that title to my 11-year-old daughter and I have taken the City of London from my dad. So we still go out and put our buttons on for various charities. I don’t quite sing and dance the way I used to, but it is a lovely part of London heritage and we are as famous as the Chelsea Pensioners, so why not do it? The fact that I have a profile in the City helps because it could die out with people getting old.”
I read that you could see the city from….
“I could, from my tower block window. I lived on the 18th floor and could see NatWest tower. I used to say to my mum, ‘I am going to work there one day and I am going to change how we live’. My first job was in that building.
I drive past there now and I look up at that tower block and I think, That’s where it all began’. We were broke half the time. There were lots of people with challenges and me and my mum were one of them, but bit-by-bit we made it out through sheer hard work. Most of my childhood was spent going to school and then cleaning betting shops until 11 pm. I don’t know if my mum still has it, but I think there’s a picture where I am holding a mop that is bigger than I am. I still love to clean – mopping and stuff like that.”
Was it hard getting to where you are now? Any reinforced ceilings?
“Yes, in the City I was different in a time when diversity wasn’t really appreciated. I didn’t speak the right way, I didn’t look right, and had a bit of an attitude. I was quite precocious and quite a forceful individual because I wanted to get ahead. I never had a college network to back me up, I never knew anyone, so I had to fight my corner a little bit harder.
“There were individuals who I worked for along the way who told me I can’t do what I have done. They said I’ll never succeed or I’ll never cut it or I’ll never get that job. I love people like that because they fuel my fire and I love to say to them, ‘Well, actually, you were wrong’.”
It’s all connections isn’t it?
“Absolutely. And I spent the past six years building those connections, not just for me, but for other people. I find people jobs, I mentor, I connect businesses, source providers. I spend probably 30% of my week connecting people to others. That’s why my strapline is ‘Make The Magic Happen’. They can go off and do stuff together. They call me a ‘contentpreneur’. I enjoy doing that and enjoy hearing about what other people have done as a result, because I feel like I was part of it.”
I heard that you were the most connected women in London….
“I do know a lot of people. I do agree that there are only three degrees of separation. I can get to most people if I need to. But I don’t call on favours often. I only call on them when I need them. I am more likely to be found giving favours or doing stuff for other people. That’s my model and I enjoy doing it.”
What do you think made you successful?
“Passion and drive. But also I open most conversations with, ‘what can I do for that person?’ and I think what you end up with is thanks. You are good to other people and they want to help you back. Also volunteering for things other people didn’t want to do. People would say, ‘oh, I don’t want to do that’ if there was a project that was really messy. I was the first one with my hands up, because I think you learn so much as a consequence of being in a mess, fixing it, and getting yourself out of that mess.
“I have always volunteered for projects that other people don’t want and for things I don’t necessarily have the expertise for. There are things I have worked on when I’d have to come home and study. I would read books and call on my network, saying, ‘Can you help me understand this stuff?’. I am not a hugely academic person, but I get things done and I have people skills. I get along so well with people. I think if you approach it a certain way, then people will help you.”
What do you think about the global economy?
“I think we’re in a tight space. I think we have been in a tight space since 2008. You look at what happened with the banks out there, Northern Rock and stuff, it has had a knock-on effect. It’s wider now, it’s countrywide, Portugal, Greece, Ireland.
“I think it’s a tough place to be. I think it’s a tough time for businesses, but I also think tough times are the best place to grow sometimes. You are starting from a very low point. I think there are people who will thrive as a consequence, but we have to watch what we are doing. It’s difficult. It’s difficult for public services, schools, I mean I do a lot of work within charities who have had their funding cut. I think the whole world is feeling the pinch. It’s a scary place to be.”
What was the original idea behind Wearethecity.com?
“It was my frustration that there wasn’t really a website for women. There wasn’t something that showed me a one-stop shop where I could make a change. There are now 20-30 charities that we promote and we have over 200 writers.
“These are girls that have never written for publications before and are amazingly talented. Some of them want to share their experiences and they are writing about a myriad of things, those problems that women face in their careers, life, childcare, elderly care, career aspirations, setting up a business. We are giving them the opportunity.
Wearethecity has grown from being a website that was built on an £8 a month web builder tool that anyone can get off the internet to a website that gets a million and a half hits every single month.
“Let it be noted that I have not done it on my own. There wouldn’t be a me without my husband. He built the website, he is the technical person, he has a full-time job, he believes in the power of women, he believes in me and it is a very supportive partnership. That enables me to do what I do. It is shared responsibility. Yes, when the kids are away we have an argument about whose week was more important, but he is a massive support, I couldn’t do it without him.”
How do you juggle kids with a career?
“Again, it’s a tough one. The kids come first. They have to come first. You have to spend quality time with them and it is quality time. I get up at 5:30 in the morning, generally I am pulling letters out of school bags, I write a few cheques, and I get prepared. I have a childminder that comes at 6:30, I literally hand over as I am walking out of the door. I get into work at 8:45 and I do my full day job. I see people, I do work on wearethecity on lunch breaks or after work, so I don’t mix the two.
When I am here in work, I am here in work. I do my emails on the train. I get home at 7. I see the children, the childminder goes. We tend to do a lot of quality stuff. We go to the theatre and we travel a lot because we live in quite a middle class white area and I grew up in the culturally mixing pot that is Hackney. I don’t want my kids growing up thinking the world is flat or white. I want them to have an appreciation of different religions and cultures. We cook a meal from the culture that we are visiting and then we travel there.
“My kids have a huge world map, probably three feet by two feet, that I bought them a few years ago. Every year, we choose two countries and then we go through a process. They do a little project, we talk about it, we cook a meal and we go. My kids can navigate Heathrow airport, Gatwick, Stansted like you would not believe. It has helped them to grow up. I want them to be the kind of individual who would see a person properly, for what they are, not what they look like or what their beliefs are. That is very important to me.”
Do you think the City is a good environment for women?
If you think of where we came from in the last 40 years, from being able to vote and stuff like that, I still think it is sad that we have to celebrate en masse when a women gets a board position. I would rather that was the norm.
“I also think women in my position should be role models and mentor these women because we need to build the next generation – that next pool of talent – or we’ll never get women who are ambitious enough to get onto boards.
It’s a good spot for women. The young girls that I talk to are coming out with different dreams and aspirations, with a ‘why can’t I?’ attitude, which I like because I think women should continue to push boundaries and I fully support that.”
What advice would you give to other women in business?
“Don’t take no for an answer. Try to remove the emotion. With some things that happen, it’s very easy to get a bit deflated. They just have to dust themselves off, get up and keep trying.
“Networking is one of the most important tools. Meet people, even if you can’t see an immediate need for your business. You never know when that person’s name is going to come up, so spend a lot of time networking with the right peer group. Keep those relationships warm, don’t be transactional, keep in touch even if it’s not a close contact. If it’s a peripheral contact, keep in touch every six months. Drop them an email saying. ‘I thought of you’, that sort of thing. That is massively important.
“Don’t give up. If you have a dream in your head, think about, ‘How do I get there?’. You may be back at the start and your dream is two miles ahead, so how do we get to mile one? Who do we need to help us to get there? What do I need to learn?
“Visualise that short-term goal, but keep the long-term one in mind as well. You just have to keep pushing on. It’s not always easy. I’m not perfect. I had times when I put my head in my hands and thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Or when I want to give up, that network around me are the ones that give me the push. You need to push on. That is what I give to my network now.”
I know what you mean, I have times when I think, ‘I can’t do this’.
“But then one of your friends will be strong and they will say, ‘Yes you can’. Then they might have a moment. I think it’s a fantastic time for women, and again, if you hang out with the right set of women who support women, it’s a fantastic place to be.”
It was Madeleine Albright who said there is a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women [Vanessa finishes the quote with me]
Absolutely. And she’s spot on. She said a lot of profound things. She is one of my women that I aspire to. She’s amazing.”
It is an annoying myth that women don’t help other women.
“I can honestly say 99% of women I associate with are absolutely supportive. If we don’t make a difference, if we don’t support other women, if we don’t tell young girls that they can do it, and influence and navigate….
“I don’t think a woman should ever change her make up. I look back at the pictures of me early in my career and I look like a guy, I have a pinstripe suit on. The only thing that says I am feminine is my hair and a bit of make up, because that’s how I thought I needed to be. In order to succeed, I needed to be one of them. I needed to be a ball breaker, I needed to be, ‘I don’t care. I’ll sack that one and I don’t care’.
But you know what? I am absolutely proud to be a woman. Unfortunately, women get labelled very easily, so if you are outspoken about something, you are having an emotional breakdown. If you react to something in a certain way: you’re sensitive, so it is very easy to slap a label on women, and I am like, ‘Why can’t my outburst be described the same as yours? I have a label and you are just being seen as being passionate. There is no difference.”
It’s like that quote: a women who has an opinion is a bitch, but a man with an opinion is strong.
“Exactly. A man and women can say the same statement and people will go ‘Ooh!!’ to the woman and with a man they just say, ‘Alright’. They see things how they are and won’t bat an eyelid. It is easy for women to be labeled and it’s a shame, it shouldn’t be that way.”
Grey Goose is the official vodka partner of the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF) and is committed, through a series of fundraising events and on-going project support, to building on the pioneering work that the Foundation undertakes. Having raised more than £2.3M for the Foundation to date, the Grey Goose and EJAF’s relationship continues to go from strength to strength.
In support of EJAF this Summer, Grey Goose will be hosting a series of unique consumer events taking place across the country- ‘Taste By Appointment’ .
The campaign introduces two tools designed to educate cocktail lovers about how to ensure the best possible drinking experience: Taste by Appointment consumer events and GreyGooseTaste.com, a website dedicated to helping users find their perfect cocktail.
The campaign is aimed at helping cocktail lovers discover how to select a cocktail that is perfectly suited to their own personal taste and will be a bit like what happened in the world of coffee where consumers moved on from black or white coffee to a full understanding of their personal preferences and choice of coffee options, from latte to skinny cappuccino with a twist etc.
Upcoming events are:
Hakkasan, Fitzrovia – 1 July
Rhodes Twenty Four – 2 July
Wyld Bar – 3 July (100% of ticket price for this event goes to EJAF in support of upcoming Gay Pride week)
Nobu –6 July
Quo Vadis –10 July
Tickets are priced at £75 and are available to buy at the ‘Grey Goose Taste’ website (greygoosetaste.com) 25% of each ticket sold will go directly to EJAF so it really is drinking for a good cause!
(Nobu is £150 but has a five course meal included with cocktails created to perfectly compliment each dish served)
UNICEF famous faces join campaigners calling on government to speak up for children at Rio
Ewan McGregor, Rio Ferdinand, Eddie Izzard, Keira Knightley & more get involved
Ewan McGregor, Keira Knightley, Rio Ferdinand, Eddie Izzard, Keeley Hawes, Simon Reeve and Martin Bell are just some of the high profile figures who have joined UNICEF UK’s campaign calling on the government to speak up for children at this week’s Rio Earth Summit.
* McGregor, Knightley, Izzard, Hawes and Bell all filmed video messages for UNICEF UK’s Speak Up campaign.
* On 7th June, broadcaster and UNICEF supporter Simon Reeve joined young UNICEF supporters at a Rio discussion event with environment minister, Caroline Spelman.
* On 12th June Rio Ferdinand tweeted a series of comedy twitpics under the hashtag #Rio4Rio, urging his 2.8 million followers to sign UNICEF UK’s Speak Up petition.
* On 13th June, young campaigners met with Nick Clegg in Whitehall and handed him a list of the thousands of signatories who have signed the petition so far.
Rio Ferdinand, a long term UNICEF supporter, caused a Twitter stir last Tuesday when he tweeted a cryptic twitpic which read “Everyone’s asking ‘What’s happening with Rio?’” alongside a picture of him looking quizzical. Only from his later tweets – which included an image of the footballer wearing a feathered carnival head dress – did it become clear that Ferdinand was tweeting to raise awareness of UNICEF UK’s Speak Up campaign to ensure children are at the heart of the Rio Earth Summit’s agenda.
UNICEF supporters Keira Knightley, Eddie Izzard, and Keeley Hawes joined UNICEF Ambassadors Ewan McGregor and Martin Bell in recording special video messages stating that they are “speaking up for children at the Rio Earth Summit.”
Rio Ferdinand said:
“Speaking as a Rio, I know life isn’t all carnivals, beaches and playing football. At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro global leaders will discuss the future of the planet and we want them to think about the world’s children. That’s why I’m speaking up for children with UNICEF UK and hope that everyone who follows me on Twitter will do the same.”
Simon Reeve said:
”We have to think more long-term and protect our planet for future generations. And so of course we have to get youngsters and children involved, and make them central to the debates and discussions that take place in Rio.”
Eddie Izzard said
“There is a massive opportunity for the UK government to put children at the heart of the Rio Earth summit. Children should be at the top of the summit agenda.”
A FIRST: Five ordinary guys in wetsuits take on a swimming relay race and attempt to cross the English channel from Guernsey in the Channel Islands to South Devon in England in 48 hours = The Great Big Monster Sea Swim.
The FIRST EVER swim relay crossing from Guernsey in the Channel Islands to South Devon in England called the Great Big Monster Sea Swim (GBMSS) is announced today. The five man team; Paul, Karl, John, Bruce and Jon will swim the non-stop relay from 27-29 August 2012 and attempt to make the crossing in only 48 hours whilst raising funds for Teenage Cancer Trust. The Great Big Monster Sea Swim is the headline event of The Sanofi 1000 Mile Challenge which centres around health and fitness activities and encourages all Sanofi Group employees in the UK and Ireland to challenge themselves to achieve over 1000 miles collectively over the next year thereby raising over £100,000 for Teenage Cancer Trust.
Paul Irwin, GBMSS team member comments, “Training has been underway since January as we have to be seriously prepared for what we will face – anything from tankers in the dark to mental exhaustion. The team are really excited and slightly apprehensive about the challenge as there will be tough decisions to make that may hurt the individual but benefit the team”.
Six time world swimming champion and Teenage Cancer Trust supporter, Mark Foster comments, “The Sanofi 1000 Mile Challenge for Teenage Cancer Trust is a great initiative centred around promoting wellbeing and personal growth. As well as inspiring and encouraging participants to challenge themselves, they will also be raising money for an important cause.”
The GBMSS team is proud to be wearing sailfish wetsuits and Saltrock Surfwear and grateful for the support of both Enigma Charters who are providing a 72ft boat and skipper to carry the support crew and Lifedge for providing equipment.
To sponsor the Great Big Monster Sea Swim and help raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust, please go donate by going online at www.justgiving.com/GBMSS or text GBMS 81 to 70070.
To follow the swim team’s journey visit Paul Irwin’s blog here, http://sanofi-inspires.co.uk/blog/12 and also follow the team’s progress on twitter @GBMSS.
