ANNUAL DINNER 2019

At this year’s Annual Dinner, two donations were made to two different charities.

Each year we have a fun event to raise funds for UNICEF.  Martyn Coates has produced an original and exciting game to play to raise money for this charity.  The eventual winner of the Enoch Tarder trophy, which is presented in memory of Maurice Ferguson for the winner, was Margaret Smith.  This game raised £75.00 for the charity.

As most of you will know, a raffle is held at the Dinner and £170.00 was raised following sales of plenty of raffle tickets.  Jane Bell, our Dinner Secretary, offered to pass on the funds this year to a charity which provides support to one of our swimmers and her family – Helen Beveridge.

Helen’s response to this is below:

“I would like to say a huge thank you to all at the BLDSA Awards dinner last week for the generous donation of the raffle proceeds to Niemann-Pick UK https://www.npuk.org/

NPUK is a small charity which supports those affected by Niemann-Pick disease.  As many will know, mainly due to Shona’s starring role on the One Show Rickshaw Challenge for Children in Need 2017, two of my three daughters are affected by Niemann-Pick type C, a very rare neurodegenerative disease which currently has no cure and no approved therapies.  We got the first diagnosis a week before my Loch Ness swim in 2016 and I spent the swim trying to come to terms with the new future for our family – at least I wasn’t just thinking about the cold for 18+ hours!

NPUK has been a huge support practically and emotionally to my girls and to the whole family.  Your donation means a great deal to me, my family and the other affected individuals and families supported by this amazing small charity.  Thank you all so much.”

Left to Right Back Row

Michelle Hardy, Peter Ingham, Rachel Smith, Liz Cain, Wendy Figures, Roy Millican, Gary Ridgeway

Front Row

Keith Godbehere, Eric Millican

Following the last BLDSA event at Lynn Regis, on 30^th September, I wandered to meet some dear friends for a final, final swim of the season – past, present and current members of the BLDSA.

I met Eric Millican, Roy Millican, Peter Ingham and Keith Godbehere at one of my very first outdoor swims and we have been friends ever since.  Every week during the season, they have a catch up and talk about past swims and discuss and analyse swims that Wendy Figures and I have completed during the current season.  Eric and Roy are like living computers and can recall the positions and times when they swam the same events and Wendy tries to beat Eric every time she competes.

Eric and Roy have crewed for and assisted many BLDSA members – most notably Jean Wilkin-Oxley (Channel Swimmer 1972 14 hrs 50 mins), Bob Fletcher (Channel Swimmer 1969 10 hrs 24 mins), Rachel Goldburn (Channel Swimmer 1992 11 hrs 54 mins). Rachel also holds the Record for the fastest Lady to swim Loch Ness (in 1990 9 hrs 25 mins).  They were both part of the Doncaster Lifeguards Veterans Relay in 1991 with Eric’s stint finishing 200 metres from the beach before being completed by fellow team member Lyn Robinson.

Erin enjoying the day with her big brother and cousin.

It’s hard to overstate what a daunting task taking on the organisation of one of the BLDSA swims is; getting to grips with safety procedures, getting officials in place from all over the UK, sourcing kayakers, managing entries and so much more. Erin stepped up to the mark and has taken all of this on while studying at Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts achieving a really tough ask for a young person. Erin has managed this fantastically with her relaxed demeanour and good sense of humour. Erin has now reaped the rewards from a well organised day and night swim at Wykeham, setting the bar high for next year.

Erin was also supported by a fantastic team prior and during the event, with Liane Llewellyn Hickling mentoring her as the outgoing swim secretary – the BLDSA would also just like to thank Liane for all of her hard work over the years at Wykeham. During the event, Erin had good friend Hazel Killingbeck supporting her all the way, another one of the BLDSA’s rising stars in the sport. And of course proud Mum, Trish Stansfield, was on hand to help too! Our extremely dedicated and first class safety crews were also on hand too, giving Erin any support she needed. Thank you to everyone who helped Erin and giving her an extra boast in confidence knowing she had a great team to support her, vital for any swimming event.

Results from Wykeham will be released soon – in the meantime, a massive well done to Erin, definitely earned a cheeky bev or two!

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Our first event of the 2018 season!!!

What an absolutely cracking day. Beautiful summer weather made for water temperatures ranging from 16.7 deg to 19 deg. All the swimmers taking part had a fantastic swim in the lovely sun baked lake.

A big thank you to all new and existing members for turning up and making a brilliant event.

Thank you to Patrick Smith for organising the event and all the volunteers who helped out.

We’re all looking forward to the next event at Wykeham Lake next week.

Thanks again to all those who supported this event after the troubles we encountered last year, it just goes to show that despite water problems last year – it was just bad luck – this venue provides a superb swim and with weather like today the BLDSA friendly atmosphere shone through!