Events and life..

It seems like there is not enough time in the day to manage all the games I have created and right now the pressure is on as we hold our first charity event and the tickets are going slowly. I was lying awake in bed going over who else I could ask in the next few days leading up to sunday 23rd Sept and decided to get up and write to more people and update my blog. So many bold plans and trying not to be in scarcity mode right now.

I have begun to ask people I don't know which is a triumph but maybe too little too late. I am finding that I am meeting new people in my town which is great and it is funny the different reactions that I get from 'I don't like children or charities' (do you think he really meant it??) to 'I would love to but I'm out of town' to 'I will have five of my friends come along'. Thank goodness for the latter.

I have two more people on my team now, Emma and Kate, both young mums who have just completely taken on creating more events and being a real partnership for what we are doing. Thank you both you gorgeous girls!!

We are planning a 'Cycling for Children' event which I hope could become a legacy from the ride, with children cycling for other children in need. We have approached our local school and the council and local police have been really helpful. This first event will be held at Victoria Park in Leamington and will involve parents and children cycling together.

Friends and family in the UK, USA and NZ are taking on being part of the Team as well and it is fabulous to create it with them as well. I really want people to have fun and not experience their support as hard work. I have found that by having a team we are enjoying ourselves meeting up each week to plan our next steps.

In the midst of all this training and raising funds Julian and I have set a wedding date which is just wonderful and so on the 29th December we will be getting married at Kenilworth Castle. My family have been extraordinary and within 24 hours of being told they had booked their tickets to fly over and be with us. I won't bore you with all of it but more and more I can see when I create inspiring big games people want to participate and they show up as being generous and extraordinary.

And thats what there is to remember, acknowledge whats been accomplished so far and continue to play full out for miracles and magic - so that means back out tomorrow sharing with people, finding more people who don't like children or charities and many more who love the opportunity to make a difference.

I think I'll be able to sleep now and if you're around this sunday we having tapas and salsa dancing, Flamenco guitar with Matt Hernandez at Catalan Restaurant, on Jury Street,Warwick, 2-5pm, tickets are £20 and all profits to The International Childcare Trust.

We have passed our first milestone

A massive thank you from us and the kids we're supporting to the many generous people who have sponsored us so far on our Cycle Kenya charity ride. We have reached the £3000 target we needed to raise by 31 August to make the cut for this trip. So, watch this space, or alternatively don't watch this space, but go to our Just Giving site and add some coppers to the collection :-)

Breaking news!

We have raised our game to £20,000 by November 20th
(and that just takes me right outside my comfort zone!)

I started this weekend on the Team, Management and Leadership programme, one of Landmark Education's Communication Course programmes and I realised that trying to do it on my own I would be doing some things along with Julian to make £8000 happen however by creating a TEAM we could be really bold and even more crazy than we have so far imagined possible.

Now doesn't that seem obvious but not in my world until now. Our families and friends are contributors but by actually having a team with a deputy and functions we can make our earlier and now this target happen and with velocity. I am so excited about what we can do together.

If you would like to be playing a fun(d)raising game at work or with friends or your community please be in touch and come on board, we will have a team member responsible for out of area games who will look after you and we will hold calls for everyone participating to support their actions.

I also wanted to thank the taxi driver who took £4 off my £9 fare and said give it to the charity. I said I would acknowledge him in my blog. Thank you!

More news as the team comes on board.

Time is going by so quickly

Wow summer really has arrived in the last few days, although today I notice it is a bit overcast. Hope it wasn't just summer in a weekend, like lunch in a can. I have started swimming a few days a week to build up my legs and lungs and it does feel great after I do it. Although curiously the riding has begun to occur as hard work and not as much fun as it was when I started.

It seems to me that I am in a middle stage as opposed to middle age (damn it might be the same thing). I have moved through the euphoria, just like a new relationship, the excitement of the beginning and the creation of a new future. One that didn't exist days before and I'm just loving every little part of it, revelling in the difference it brings to my life, talking about it, planning things to do and just generally enjoying the newness it brings to my experience of living.

Now we've been doing it for a little while and, whilst it still matters, and after all I said I would, it seems a little more like work - sometimes hard work - and I look back at the beginning and wonder why that newness can't be there like it was. This is the time when I know there is just to do the work, be your commitment and continue to choose what you're up to, right? Easy to say...

All across my life I can see the times when I have stopped choosing: in relationships, when it ain't so pretty and wonderful, and I think 'is this it, is this all it can be?' and not remember that I chose it. I am 100% responsible for how it goes, how it turns out. So after the initial excitement wains, that is where the real work and dedication begins. It's easy in those first stages because it has a natural momentum of its own.

Now as I bunker down I can choose it to be hard work or choose it to be just as much fun as it was in the beginning, because every time I get on the bike it actually is a new time. It is only my perception that has changed.

The way I see it, this process only starts with accepting the way that it is right now, learning to be with how something is, rather than forcing it to be something else. Its only in acceptance that the opportunity for a new possibility can arise. When I signed up for this ride I knew it would alter my life, and I thought 'wow, how fantastic is that' and now, as I write this, I have become present again to that experience which has and continues to effect my life and it is wow, and sometimes I just forget that.

I sometimes forget I want to make a difference to a group of children who deserve the same chance for living that we expect for our own children, but knowing that you are out there supporting us, contributing to these childrens' lives, that is a great way to be alive.

Okay I'm over it now and it will be back on the bike tonight or a swim depending on the weather.

The rains came down and the floods came up....

I am reminded of a song we used to sing in sunday school. If you didn't know it rained yet again in the Midlands this weekend with severe flooding in some areas. Warwick has been fortunate in the severe downpours we have been experiencing however the trains were cancelled out of London on friday and I was fortunate to get a National Express coach home. I was lucky as my fellow passenger who was heading to Manchester had been waiting for four or five hours by the time he got on the bus and faced a longer journey ahead after I was dropped off at Coventry at midnight. But pleased to be home safe and dry.

Anyway the long and short of it we didn't get out for a ride as planned so it back on the turbo trainer that sits in our hallway. So I sat on the bike with the front door open and rode anyway. However we need to get out on the roads, feel like my training is slipping away rather than building up.

As I write this I am aware that it is not a good metaphor for my training and as a coach I know that our words create our world and that particular context is not empowering.

Okay so new context - my body is getting stronger and will be ready for the road! Yeah baby yeah!! (the cynics amongst you can read it either way ;-)

The pathway to leadership

Recently I was one of three speakers at a fantastic reception held at Lehman Brothers on Canary Wharf. It was a fabulous evening with over 80 women working in IT attending to find out more about their ‘Pathway to Leadership’.

The reason I share this here is that I used my Kenya cycle ride as a metaphor for creating a future that we are passionate and excited about, and committed to. That future for me is one of being able to complete the ride and raise £8000 for children I will never meet, but who will be impacted by me getting on my bike. I am being pulled rather than being pushed towards this future: it is one of the things that gets me out of bed in the morning! I love that expression – having the future pull you towards it.

I’ve have since been asked to speak at the next event in November, and they even moved the date so I could be there (otherwise I was still going to be in Africa). Can you imagine how big a pull that has on me? I now have over 80 people who want to hear how it all went – another incentive to get out of bed and get training!

There is so much happening at the moment that it seems difficult to find the time to even write this but I am so excited about what is happening around me. Friends and contributors are making such a difference to Julian and me.

Also Steph and Graham, friends here in the Midlands who rode Land Ends to John O’ Groats, two years ago, have come up with a great cycle ride – moderately difficult - for the four of us to ride together this weekend. How great is that, just when I was thinking we needed to push up a level in our training, wonderful people have shown up and are working to get us out of our comfort zone!

Just quickly here to end, thank you to all of you have gone to www.justgiving/moiraandjulian.com and donated to the cause. Julian and I are moved by your contribution to us and to the children. Thank you.

Errrrhhh….

Yesterday we headed off to Draycote to get some time on our bikes. With all the rain of the last few weeks my training schedule has gone right off. I’ve had a bug and lost a good part of the week. Just finding the time to manage my training hasn’t been a priority and boy did it show in our outing yesterday.

I managed ten miles and frankly I had had enough at the end of it. Just generally felt like crap and exhausted which was a huge disappointment after our successful training weekend in the Derbyshire Dales several weekends ago where we rode 21 miles on the Saturday and a tremendous 38 miles on the Sunday and a shorter outing of 8 miles on the Monday on fairly rigorous (actually Julian says f….ing vertical would be more accurate) terrain. I felt so good after the 38 mile outing that I knew I could do Kenya. I just needed to do more riding to build stamina and power.

Went out again today, Sunday, and only did 5 miles. It felt worse than my first 5 mile outing, crikey dick, can’t believe this. All our good efforts seem to have just dissipated and it wasn’t as if we had had a night on the town either. The upside is I got off my seat to ride uphill and kept the speed up but my breathing was tight most of the ride.

We’re heading back out there on Monday night to break through this patch. Is this how it goes?