The Oxfam Trailwalker

Dear family, friends, fans, and fellow bloggers,

In the four years I have been running this blog I have never once asked blog readers to do anything (except to read this blog, and in fact I have never really asked people to do that either). However I am now asking for your support, mainly because on the weekend of the 27 August 2011 I am going to do something crazy:

• No, I am not spending the weekend preparing my entry for Masterchef 2012;
• No, I am not travelling to London to join in the looting;
• No I am not giving up on my dream of becoming Australia’s first second Tour de France winner;
• No, it will involve anything to do with section 5 of the Summary Offences Act (1988) (Click here to see section 5 of the Summary Offences Act).

The craziness is that some of my ‘friends’ (and I use that term loosely) have persuaded me to enter the 2011 Oxfam Trailwalker.

What is it?

The Oxfam Trailwalker is an event involving 550 teams of four, who will be running, walking and crawling (depending on how difficult it gets) 100 kilometres from Parsley Bay on the Hawkesbury river through the off-beaten tracks of Sydney’s northern bushlands, before finishing at Georges Heights on Sydney Harbour.

Each team has 48 hours to finish the 100km trail, although our team has estimated a finish time of 15 hours.

Why?

To raise money and awareness for Oxfam Australia, which is an independent, secular, non-government organisation working in more than 28 countries including Indigenous Australia, and is part of a global movement of dedicated people working hard to fight poverty and injustice.

My team, named City Bible Forum, is made up of people I know through my church, and is hoping to raise over $5,000 to help some of the world’s poorest people.

I am writing to you to ask you to consider your ability to support us by donating to help us reach our target – Click here to go to our web page:

Please note that 100 percent of your donation goes to Oxfam and is tax deductible. All associated costs with participating, such as food, drinks and support crew are provided for by us, (not to mention the long-sleeved white jackets and comfortable padded cells we will all be getting in to at the end).

While someone has suggested that this will be good empathy training for the upcoming birth of my second child, I will leave you with a quote from the little known endurance athlete Charles M. Schulz (the creator of Snoopy):

"Life is like a ten-speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use."
Charles M. Schulz

If I go through all of my ten speeds, you are all most welcome to come and visit me in the repair shop.

Andrew (for those who don't know, my last name is Charleston, as there are two Andrew's in our team)

PS. Hope you enjoyed this post and even if you are not able to support us financially, you can still follow our progress and pain on the day at our web page.