Connections everywhere in the big old Rotary family!

43 days to go .  Absolutely delighted to see that our daily updates are starting to pick up significant page views -thanks so much for all of you who continue to share on Facebook and Retweet - it really does make a huge difference.

Proud to announce we have just received our 44th official entry, from the Rotary Club of Ramsey in the Isle of Man District 1280. Great to see the Isle of Man represented - our club President Peter Berry 2011/12  (of the Rotary Club of Grantham) will be especially delighted as he was born there!! Many thanks to Peter Whiteway for completing the registration.

Another absolutely  brilliant story from today is the news that the Toronto Earls Court Rotary club have confirmed they will be taking part, all set to be the second confirmed entry from Canada. What's particularly great about this , is that a few weeks ago I was contacted by Past District Governor of  D6330 in Canada Tanya Wolff who said that she very much wanted to take part in our event but would be in Toronto on that day. To try and identify a club in the area, I put out a request on our twitter feed. After a little while and some Retweets, Gordon Crann , chair of the  Rotary District 7070 World Community Service Committee in Toronto got in touch with us via twitter asking if he could help. I sent him the details and immediately he sent out to all of his contacts in the area. 

Then just this morning I got the confirmation that he'd found a club ready to take part. I sent out a note to let Tanya know, and he put us both in email touch with President Pauline Nuttall and Doralice Ferreira of the club. 

What an amazing example of Service above self and of Rotarians such as Gordon prepared to go the extra mile and a half to connect us all together . Just like this whole wonderful journey so far, it is so magical to experience all this Fellowship on a truly international scale. Proud to be a Rotarian - 100% YES!

Here's the latest map with today's additions http://g.co/maps/eur46

Incredibly proud to share this message from our RI President

45 days to go. What an amazing day all round!

This morning opened my Inbox to see that we had received a special message from Rotary International President Kalyan Banerjee - naturally it now has pride of place on the quotes section of our website

http://www.rotaryglobalswimarathon.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=138

Thanks to the support of Jack Selway, CEO and founder of the inspiring worldwide Rotary Global History Fellowship and his executive board members Prakash Sarasawat and Nevine Abdelkhalek, we had 3 more club sign ups today in fairly rapid succession.

The first of which  appropriately enough was from a club in District 3170 India, especially symbolic given that  India has just  achieved a full year Polio free. A second sign up in District 3170 followed shortly afterwards, and then a brand new country represented as Nevine Abdelkhalek of the Rotary Club of El Tahrir in Egypt.

I also received encouraging confirmation from Ellen Yu of the Rotaract club of Shanghai that they are definitely taking part.

To cap it all, this afternoon, I had a great chat via Skype with Chad Waldo, from the Rotary club of Lee Sunrise in D6040 USA, who has set up a fantastic Podcast service to broadcast project news to clubs around the world . Check it out for yourself at http://itsrotary . Hopefully our conversation about Global Swimarathon will be ready and shareable on podcast by Sunday 15th January - will be sure to keep you informed. Reaching an audience of 500-600 Rotarians each week, I'd encourage anyone with a project idea or event you want to publicize to talk to Chad - you can even connect with him on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/itsrotary When I asked him about it yesterday he got in touch straight away and despite a few network gremlins at my end, remained patient and extremely helpful 

One final bit of good news is that RIBI have just released the 2nd nationwide press release about Global Swimarathon , so should be even more sign ups to come on a local RIBI level!

Only 7 more clubs to go till the next milestone of 50 - well on course to achieve that by the end of this week - the global map is looking more and more exciting by the day!! 

http://g.co/maps/edq5h

Sharing great event ideas around the globe!

49 days to go and counting. As of this afternoon UK time we now have our 39th entry confirmed and registered from the Rotary Club of Alnwick in Northumberland. Plenty of other exciting activity going on today. Invited to send a mail to pr@rotary.org at Rotary International HQ, so did just that and here's hoping we can take the PR to another global level!

More great news on the UK front as RIBI have confirmed that the next event nationwide press release is due to  be published next Monday 9th January. Just this afternoon,  team GB olympic waterpolo ladies got in touch requesting more info on how they can get involved and take part , so that's another exciting development.

On the subject of event organisation, I've really been hugely impressed by the fantastic events being prepared and built around the Swimarathon World Record attempt hour.

Take for example these two Rotary clubs in Queensland Australia - this is my kind of pool party!!

https://www.facebook.com/events/270827022981909/

Here's a few details - there's even a hush hush superstar swimmer being lined up which should be confirmed very soon

7.30pm  Gold coin donation to enter pool - Proceeds to END POLIO NOW -  Thanks to June who is not charging. BBQ and Bar - Proceeds from food and bar will go to the Mareeba Swimming Club to purchase a shade cloth for the pool - Rotary will run Bar and Food as a thank you to the swimming Club.
Entertainment - Waiting on confirmation from band suggested by June - No Charge -
 The following swimming events will be held, prior to the record event - there is obviously fees involved with the following events!
 1. Celebrity 50 meter Freestyle! -  local celebrities to take part in this race
2. Corporate 50 meter Medley Relay
 3.  Services 50 meter Medley Relay - Ida and Jeanette to follow up on this.
> Police Service - Confirmed - Organiser SGT Geoff Stockall Fire Brigade - Army Reserve - Rotary - Confirmed - Organiser - President Kevin Davies Ambulance - Lions - at 945PM sharp we will need to get all record swimmers ready so we can start at 10PM AEST sharp - The record will end at 11PM.
> We will close bar at midnight - Evening ends!


There are so many more great additional fundraising  ideas out there including street collections, tshirts, wristbands, corporate games, cupcakes, balloons, auctions, pre swim dinners - the list is endless - so one things for sure it's going to be a day to remember!!

Great examples of local events for Global Swimarathon!

52 days to go!

For today's entry, I'd like to highlight a couple of clubs here in the UK who have worked extremely hard in preparing their participation in Global Swimarathon and to share with you some of their event plans.

Firstly the Rotary Club of Brampton and Longtown in Cumbria. Thanks to fantastic work by Kevin Walsh http://www.twitter.com/kwalsh601 over the last few months, they have the very appropriately named "The Pools" venue booked in Carlisle, they are already actively recruiting participants and as you'll see in the article below they even have the "End Polio Now" message lighting up the town!

http://cumbria24.com/news/2011/12/28/rotary-global-swimarathon-end-polio#.TvtKISr4BuE.twitter

Across the other side of the UK, Sarah Bosomworth http://www.twitter.com/sarah_nepal2011 has also done a terrific job in getting the Rotary Club of Knaresborough, Yorkshire ready for the event. As well as securing a booking for all 8 lanes of the local Knaresborough pool, they will be joined by current UK Paralympic Swimmer Claire Cashmore and RIBI President Ray Burman amongst the many distinguished guests of honour.

http://harrogate-news.co.uk/2011/12/31/swimarathon-benefit-rotarys-polio-eradication-campaign/

Over the coming days and weeks, we'll be highlighting many more event details, and will share with you a full list of all the venues taking part around the globe - watch this space!