In memory of Sarah - Martha and James fund raising

[jim73vw]

Hi all,

Some of you will have seen our efforts via Facebook, but thought I would share with you all. Last year in lockdown Martha and I were swimming in the sea and for some odd reason I said ‘wouldn’t it be good to swim in the sea every month next year’.

I didn’t think much more about it until the 31st Jan when Martha said to me ‘if you want to swim every day this year you need to go today!’.

It was a wild windy icy day, sideways sleet and rain, a rough tide, and a sea temperature of around 7 degrees. I was pulled over by the tide twice and honestly wondered if I would ever feel my feet again!

In February we repeated the exercise finding a more pleasant day but the reaction to our dip was still shock by many so we thought we should be putting it to good use.

So we are continuing the challenge to benefit St Barnabas Hospice Worthing where Sarah was cared for in her final days. As we have just passed the anniversary of losing Sarah it seems poignant to share. I have also been in touch with the family liaison team in the last week to facilitate some meetings for Martha so she has other avenues for conversation - obviously challenging in this last year, but they are committed to helping families as much as they can.

Like so many charities they have of course been hit massively by the pandemic, so every little helps, and for Martha it has been a real positive for her to feel she is making a difference.

So I hope you don’t mind me sharing here, no pressure to donate at all, we all have our own charities we support, and Martha and I do of course have 9 months to go!

Photos and updates from our three swims so far are all on the page - link below.

You can see our progress and donate to the JustGiving page by clicking here:

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraisi...a0cce6462515a3.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to St Barnabas House, so it's the most efficient way to give - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.

Thanks all, hope you don’t mind me sharing here.

Keep safe all,

[BlueNova]

You're both absolutely mad James & Martha! There must be an more comfortable way to raise funds for the Hospice? However, given the big role that the Nova played in your marriage to Sarah, and the incredible work that hospices do, I've sent a wee donation and wish you both well for the remaining 9 'dips'.
Loving the 'lockdown' hairstyle James!

[Phill]

Well done Martha & James, Sarah would have been very proud of you both

[jim73vw]

Hi all,

First and foremost Martha and I want to thank you for your kind donations in the last week.

We have revised our fundraising target 3 times over and really didn’t expect such support so early on in the challenge, so thank you. It also spurred us on to get the next swim in – more of that later.

Today marks a year since Sarah’s funeral and we certainly didn’t realise then how close we were to the COVID world – who knows when we will see 170+ people in a room together again?

It has been a real positive for Martha to feel she is helping give something back. As I am sure you can imagine the last year has been a blur but as we have hit many tough anniversaries thoughts naturally go back to the hospice and the time we all spent there and the support they offer. In fact just last week I was in contact with their family team regarding how Martha can revisit the gardens and some of the team to chat through things – so the support certainly continues.

Hopefully you all managed to enjoy some of the Spring sunshine this weekend. For early March it was relatively mild on the coast (10 degrees ambient temp) and most importantly no cold cross winds so we took the chance rather than holding out for warmer weekends at the end of the month. We were also joined by 4 other swimmers, so perhaps we have started a trend ! In theory we may have done the 3 coldest swims – April should rise a little, but with a white Easter being predicted who knows !

Latest update here for those that like to see the evidence https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jamesandmarthaswimchallenge

Thanks again,

James & Martha