Making Basil proud -a tribute to the founder of Rotary Grantham Swimarathon

19 days to go. Our Marathon Swimarathon weekend is now over, and at today's club meeting there was a very special atmosphere. The 6 members of the Rotary Rollers swimming team, including 3 members in their 60s and 70s who had each swum in all but 1 of the 23 years of swimarathon were awarded their event t-shirts and team photos.

Event chair Roger Graves stood up and read out a very special note.

It was written by the daughters of the late Rotarian Basil Blackham, who passed away in July 2011 aged 86. Basil was a member of the Rotary Club for 40 years, President 1982-1983 and was the man who first introduced Swimarathon to our town 23 years ago, having seen the event idea at a club in Somerset.

They wrote of how proud he would be , looking down from the heavens, seeing swimarathon going from strength to strength. For the large part of 22 years Basil ran the event, and he never missed a single swimarathon.

As a prospective new member visiting the club in December 2010, I will always treasure the way Basil, one of the elder-statesmen of the club, made his way over to me and gave me the warmest possible of welcomes. As I'd been told that the dress code regulations were a little more relaxed, I'd left my tie off for this first meeting. In the most gentle way possible, Basil suggested that wearing a tie was something I might consider for the next meeting as a mark of tradition, and from that day onwards out of total respect for him, I always wear a suit and tie. When I was inducted into the club, I'll never forget him coming over and handing me his much treasured book about the history of Rotary of written by a long serving secretary of RIBI. That spirit of recognising the need to look to the future but always understanding where we've come from, inspired me to become a member of the Rotary Global History Fellowship. He truly was a remarkable gentleman in every sense, and Roger's tribute reminded us all of the importance of honouring his memory.

As you'll see from this moving Tribute to Rotarian Basil Blackham Basil was also a much travelled Rotarian visiting clubs in an amazing 45 countries during his years as a member.

I'm sure he would be as proud as anyone could possibly be of how our incredible Rotary family have helped us to share the event with every corner of our globe. We have just under 3 weeks to go now to Global Swimarathon - we've come so far now - let's make this the greatest coming together of Rotary clubs in the history of our organisation. Each and everyone of us taking part has the power to make it happen , and together we will.

Thankyou.

Incredible weekend at Grantham Swimarathon - next stop the WORLD!

20 days to go. 

  Forgive me, for turning attention away from the Global Swimarathon for a moment, but one of the main drivers for RGS is to try and create a legacy of annual swimarathon events in communities around the world and we really want to share the Grantham Swimarathon experience as widely as we can.

From Friday morning at 8.30am right through to Sunday at 6pm, myself, Roger Graves and at some stage or other every single member of the Rotary Club of Grantham, along with members of our Grantham Kesteven daughter evening club and Inner Wheel and numerous other supporters have been enjoying our 23^rd and  best ever local Swimarathon event!

Here are just a few of the amazing statistics from this years event –

•  A record £37,100 from pledged sponsorship forms over the weekend (up £1,000 from the same time last year)  - With further sponsorship and just giving funds / text donations still to be counted we are set to raise close to £50,000 , all of which is shared between more than 40 local charities.
• More than 35,000 lengths swum – including a brand new record set by Kings Water Polo team of 5 who between them amassed an incredible 281 lengths of our 25 metre pool in just 55 minutes!!
• A record number of teams taking part – 238 in all ,and over 1400 swimmers.
• All of this over a weekend hit with snow and icy conditions, a true testimony to the amazing support and commitment to the event

As I wrote in previous blog entries, we were very honoured to be joined by RIBI President 2011/12 Ray Burman for the opening hours,.  He has really been a huge help in the promotion of Global Swimarathon and and how proud we were to showcase an event that is truly at the heart of our community.

On Saturday we were overjoyed to have the company of our Global Swimarathon UK ambassador Fran Williamson and her manager and partner Chris Whitaker. She brought a couple of her medals along with her, a Gold world championship and a silver paralympic medal from Beijing which we were all in complete awe of , and we had a wonderful time soaking up the atmosphere together.

She did also make sure that I got back on with my marathon swimarathon challenge !! IF you haven’t seen the details please take a look at http://www.justgiving.com/PaulWilsonRotary - would really appreciate your support - up to £452 raised so far!!

 As I said on day 1 Friday in between supporting the event team,  I swam in 2 1 hour sessions including the very first at 1.30pm in the company of Grantham Journal and then at 5.30pm with the Gravity FM teams,  which brought me to 52 lengths by close of play Friday. With Fran’s encouraging words echoing in my ears, I stepped up on Saturday afternoon, swimming with a lovely bloke Andrew who’d swam in 22 out of 23 swimarathons and who’s friends were unable to join him and and Anne who just floated gently on her back  and managed another 27 lengths. The following hour there was a spare lane, so I filled in a few minutes late and managed another 60 lengths.

I joined up with our very own Rotary rollers team , who considering we had an an average age well in the 60s put in some sterling work and I finished the day on 168 – still 31 short of my 201.2 target. The drive home was a little treacherous a sudden snowfall had turned it into a snowmarathon , but made it safely back.

Sunday morning a shift on computer admin, processing all the sponsor forms and photos for every team taking part – every single entrant this year got a special t-shirt, and once again our sponsors did us proud with over £8,000 paying for all the costs of running the event including the pool booking fee, allowing us to give every single penny raised direct to the charities.

An honour to get back in the pool at 2.30pm with President Elect and Swimarathon and Global Swimarathon website master Irvin Metcalf.  Especially brilliant that after all these years, our inspirational chair Roger Graves took the plunge, even in a middle lane away from the safety of the wall and joined us. He actually managed 20 lengths – a very impressive haul for someone who has literally never swum more than 100 metres before – so he’s one name down on the sign up list for Global Swimarathon!! Was great to be with them as I finally made it in hour number 6 past the 201.2 mark ,and racked up 211 laps.

All weekend long we had a tremendous response to our announcements on the upcoming Global Swimarathon and with schools and clubs to confirm, we are looking well on track to make our own 500 entrants target.

Back to my own target,  back in the pool for the last hour of the weekend 16:30.  Doesn’t get better than being able to swim it with the Grantham Lynx Disability swimming club – who were actually founded by Rotary Club of Grantham in 1953 and who have supported us brilliantly ever since the first event when members of the UK Paralympic squad swam non stop in relay for 24 hours.

Very emotional to have my little 6 year old boy was there to swim length 212 with me, and he went on to manage an impressive 6 lengths all on his own,  with his Daddy trailing behind him at times! – Then we powered through the last half an hour – helped by a fabulous team we made it to 153 lengths as a team , my highest total of the weekend, and for me personally , just amazing to get to 250 lengths.  Nearly 4 miles – definitely in need of  a rest now!!

Come tomorrow morning I’ll be raring to go though – news of a Croatian club entry to confirm on the website and plenty of other encouraging messages over the weekend – so much to look back on, but for now its full steam ahead!!

Grantham Swimarathon weekend is here!

22 days to go. An other amazing day for sign ups yesterday, with a further 3 coming in after I wrote yesterday's blog. Thanks to Alistair Miller at our most northerly entry in East Sutherland, Scotland, we now have 2 local Interact clubs registered for the event - so brilliant to get the kids involved , and I would actively encourage all of you with Interact and Rotaract clubs in your area to get in touch with them and ask them to join with your event.
Then entry number 83, thanks to Manish Deshpande of the Rotary Club of Kagal MIDC taking us to 4 entries in District 3170  and an 8th entry overall in India - fantastic.

As per the blog title, we're all very excited here at the Rotary Club of Grantham, as our annual 3 day swimarathon starts today. As I've posted about previously as well as working all through the weekend (along with every other member of our club, members of Grantham Kesteven evening club and our Inner wheel club) I've also got my own swimarathon marathon challenge to fit in as well,  and thanks so much for everyone out there who have helped me raise  £400 in sponsorship received already - http://www.justgiving.com/PaulWilsonRotary so it's going to be fantastic!

Very proud to say this year,  our event will be opened by our RIBI 2011/12 President Ray Burman and during the weekend our UK Global Swimarathon ambassador Fran Williamson will be joining us as special guest to see what the event is all about. We'll make sure we share all the videos and news from the weekend as soon as we can , but as you'll appreciate, updates may be a bit limited over the next couple of days with so much going on.

Loads of activity to report in terms of new interest in joining the event - only this morning received an email from Canary Islands, Spain where Marcus Cabrera who takes part in Masters Swimming events in Spain has said they would like to take part - magic!

More brilliant news this morning from Mareeba Rotary in D9550 Australia , one of the amazing 8 clubs entered in that District. Thanks to great work from Ida Portella and the team, they've managed to get legendary multi-world championship winning triathlete Brad Beven as their special guest - http://www.bradbeven.com - As you'll see he's got an incredible record of achievements, but for me the statement that stands out on there has to be

"Brad Beven trained in swamps with Crocs, but you don't have to."

LEGEND!!

We've hit the 80 club milestone!

23 days to go. Brilliant to have 4 brand new official sign ups to report, and just to underline how staggeringly global this event really is all 4 are from 4 separate continents of the world!!

First we had the Rotary Club of Kurunda in District 9550 taking the D9550 total to an astounding 8 clubs taking part. Then in the space of literally half an hour, we had the Rotary Club of Beacon Bay in D9320 South Africa (5 clubs in D9320) , the Rotary Club of Bijap(3rd in D3170) India and then the Rotaract Club of Chisinau, Moldova - a 17th country entered!

You know what....

Last night I went to see probably my favourite band in the whole world Snow Patrol, over at the Nottingham Arena. The place was absolutely packed out, the atmosphere incredible, some 10,000 people gathered together under the same roof.

And then I thought....

25thFebruary2012 - we are on target to get over 12,000 people taking part at the same time. More than this whole stadium full of people , stretching as far as the eye could see...

Even though there are 11,300 miles separating the most northerly (East Sutherland, Scotland) from the most southernly club (Karori NZ), even though there are people taking part at 14 different hours of the day - we are all standing there together - in that same virtual stadium - united in our commitment to End Polio Now

Takes your breath away.....

All set to smash the world record and make £1000s for End Polio Now!

24 days to go. First of all a huge thanks to all those of you who are already actively using our new Rotary Global Swimarathon Support Forum on Facebook. We'll be looking to hold regular live chat sessions on there at different times of the day over the next few weeks to help bring everyone together at the same time and to give us chance to share our progress and help each other - look out for announcements to come.

Thanks very much to everyone who's responded so far on our request for details of your local events. I'd like to share with you a few of the details which will hopefully give you a sense of just how big this event really is going to be....

Just going to list out 5 clubs as an example - remember there are 76 registered worldwide now :)

Club Name	Location	Swimmers for WR attempt	Fundraising target (£)
Rotary Club of Grantham, UK	Grantham Meres Leisure Centre	500	3000
Rotary Club of Townsville Daybreak, Australia	Long Tan Swimming Pool	1000	2500
Rotary Club of Zamboanga City Phillipines	Joaquim F Enriquez Sports Stadium Pool	960	1500
Rotary Club of Knaresborough	Knaresborough Swimming Pool	200	1500
Rotary Club of Mareeba	Mareeba Swimming Pool	400	3500
Total		3060	12000

So in just 5 events - we can exceed the 2533 swimmer target and raise over £12,000  ($20,000 US) in the process.

This is going to be one very special day......

A new Rotary Global Swimarathon support forum

25 days to go. This morning we had our club's first ever breakfast meeting, in our latest innovation to attract new membership interest in the town. With a week to go to our own local swimarathon it was wonderful to see that all 20 of the guests who came along all knew about swimarathon. It was with a real sense of pride when Roger Graves and I were able to share the story of how Global Swimarathon has spread around the world, and it really connected with the people in the room.

Two more confirmed sign ups today. Firstly number 75 was from St Francis Sports club on behalf of  the Rotary Club of St Francis Bay South Africa. Brilliant to get another sign up from an organization staging an event and working with local Rotary. Number 76 was a second entry in Romania from the Rotaract club of Satu Mare  - we're told there are a couple of other Rotaract clubs and Interact clubs there working together to organize an event so watch this space - exactly what we were talking about in yesterday's blog.

Finally as I mentioned yesterday, today we've launched a brand new facebook group, specifically for all the worldwide local event co-ordinators and supporters of Rotary Global Swimarathon. This is your chance to share your thoughts and progress updates, ask any questions and get aquainted all the Rotary clubs taking part around the world - please do use it. Can't promise we'll be there 24 hours but with so many taking part there'll always be someone to help out I'm sure.

Here's the link to the group if you'd like to join us : https://www.facebook.com/groups/313994945319594/

Hold the front Page - its 70 clubs worldwide!!

28 days to go. Incredible that since yesterday's blog entry, we've received no less than 7 new entries!
A new club in Canada, who I saw mentioned on their webpage when I did the Rotary Global Swimarathon google search The Rotary Club of Perth in Ontario. Then the Rotary Club of Pigeon Forge in the US became the 65th Club registered and the 8th in the USA

This morning woke up to discover that both the Rotary Club of South Gladstone and the Rotary club of Cairns North had registered in Queensland Australia.

Finally , just as I was updating the details, 3 clubs joined us in Pakistan thanks to a fantastic father and son team of Rtn Saleem Ahmad Khan President of Rotary Club of Lahore Metropolitan and Hammad Khan President of the Interact Club of Redwood, and then to cap it all we even have our first Earlyact club (ages 9-12) registered the EarlyAct Club of Greenwood. Absolutely incredible to have them joining us , means so very much to have that commitment in a part of the world where Polio is still an endemic reality.

With 70 clubs fully registered, we now have 1 in every 500 Rotary clubs in the entire world taking part!

Picked up our own local paper this morning, the Grantham Journal which has always been a fantastic supporter of our club. There we were , our chair Roger Graves and me pictured on the frontpage with the lead news story- wonderful to think that the event just grows and grows with your continued support we really might see Rotary Global Swimarathon making headline news around the world.

We have an incredible opportunity to showcase the Rotary family around the globe.

 Let's make this an event the world will truly be proud of !

Keep those registrations coming !!

29 days to go. Very pleased to report that since yesterday's blog we've had a further two completed registrations bringing the officially registered total to 63.

We now have a new leader in the "most northerly" Global swimarathon entrant thanks to the East Sutherland Rotary Club joining us in the Scottish Highlands. Only 11300 miles from Rotary Club of Karori ,New Zealand - it's  synchronized swimming on an implausibly global scale!! Thanks to Alisdair Miller for completing the registration. We are also delighted to confirm our 3rd entry from Egypt, as the Rotary Club of Heliopolis El-Golf has just registered thanks to Suzy Ibrahim.

Just been doing another google search for "Rotary Global Swimarathon" and found thousands of page entries - web articles, blogs, newspaper articles, newsletters - its just remarkable how quickly word is spreading.

Why not take a look yourself!!

100 clubs means 100s of £1000s for End Polio Now!

33 days to go. Take a look at the End Polio Now "totaliser" on the right of this page. $200million achieved - (as of 17th January was an astounding $202.7million raised by Rotary around the world).

An amazing achievement, but we all know there is much more work to be done until we can finally say that Polio is no more.

Thinking about my own personal challenge I've set myself around swimarathon, which is to raise £2012 in this Olympic year to be split between End Polio Now and local Grantham Charities I'm very happy to say that I'm off to a great start with £162 raised so far http://www.justgiving.com/PaulWilsonRotary (all new donations always welcome!).

That got me thinking that in terms of the enormous potential for fundraising from the Rotary Global Swimarathon. If just 99 other Rotarian members / friends were able to raise £1000 each - that would raise an incredible £100,000.

Now let's look at where we are now. As of tonight, thanks to two more official registrations today from Madhumita Bishnu of the Rotary Club of Calcutta Uptown in India and BJ Metz of the Rotary Club of Easton Philadelphia USA we already have 55 clubs fully signed up for Global Swimarathon. The early estimates of people taking part in each event average at around 200 people per club. With all the additional fundraising activities built into those events , it would be a fair estimate to say that on average each will be likely to raise £1000-£2000. So between the clubs we already have taking part £100,000 seems entirely achievable.

The wonderful thing is there is really no limit to how many clubs can join us -even at this relatively late stage, events can be kept simple, really all that's needed is a swimming venue , at least 25 people available at the right time of day and your club can be a part of it.

This week we are going all out to get more sign ups. Thanks to some fantastic campaigning by Rotarians out there, most notably from my good friend Susanne Rea in District 9550 who has been phenomenally committed to putting the word out and has helped us get new interest from as far away as Nigeria and Pakistan as well as other clubs in Australia, we really have some incredible momentum going into this week.

The wider world are certainly starting to take note as well. We've got contacts set up here in the UK with Sky Sports News the nationally recognised number 1 sports news channel , British swimming have been retweeting about our event to their many thousands of followers, and earlier this week, US movie legend Mia Farrow gave our event a special mention in her tweets to over 28,000 followers.

Our swimarathon chair Roger Graves (featured in the video above) has now set up on twitter you can follow on http://twitter.com/@gravesrjg and I know he can't wait to help take on the challenge of getting us to 100 clubs signed up. We'll be sending out our latest news update via email to all of the confirmed entrants on Monday so please look out for that. This week we really want to start building up our global map so that not only all the clubs are featured, but the precise venues, the number of swimmers and the fundraising amount raised.

Then we'll create our own version of the totaliser on the right. Our club has already raised £300 for the cause so that'll start us off nicely, but I firmly believe that together we can go well beyond £100,000 and at the same time , share something unique with the wider world. A global swimming event on this scale has never been done before - until now....

A lasting legacy of swimarathons all over the world!

34 days to go. In exactly 2 weeks time, hundreds of swimmers young and old will be descending on our local Grantham Meres leisure centre to take part in our annual swimarathon event. Don't panic, we're not starting global swimarathon event early - there's still 5 weeks to go on that front!

From the afternoon of Friday 3rd of February until late afternoon on Sunday 5th, the whole pool is completely given over to Swimarathon. Over 1400 people will swim, at least 60% of which are under 16, thanks to the fantastic support of local schools and community clubs. Our entire 50 strong Rotary club, plus Inner wheel members, members of our evening club will be there to click every single lane, register , announce, organize , entertain. We all love doing it so much, the atmosphere of good will and excitement is really intoxicating. We have ongoing corporate sponsorship support of several local businesses, which means that all of the admin costs are completely covered and every single penny raised goes direct to local good causes.

 The truly magical thing is, the event is very much woven into the fabric of the town -it is by far and away the biggest annual fundraiser in our local area, and its popularity and reputation has just grown and grown.

Please watch this video -it really tells it's own story. Do look out for our ever energetic Swimarathon chair Roger Graves giving you a behind the scenes access all areas tour.

We'll keep you posted on all this year's swimarathon event action. On Friday afternoon we are excited to be welcoming none other than RIBI President Ray Burman to open proceedings and with a special Olympic theme in place, we are all set to make this the biggest and best event ever.

It is in all of our interests to raise the profile of Rotary clubs in our local towns and cities, and a swimarathon event really does have all the special ingredients, of a fun filled, family centred event to bring people together.

It's also a brilliant way to find new members. One of our newest members, recently said that what finally convinced him to join our club was swimarathon. As chair of his local village committee, he attended our annual charity presentation night, where over 50 local causes apply for and receive grants from the Swimarathon fund. Rotary in action, Rotary in the community.

Wonderful to think that through Global Swimarathon, the seeds are now sown for at least another 50 Swimarathon events to become established around the world - we can all share our experiences and ideas and grow them together - how amazing is that!!

Everyone's talking about Rotary Global Swimarathon!

36 days to go. Great news of positive interest from a 2nd Rotary Club in Pakistan and their local interact club, excited to hear that Rotaract Westminster have now confirmed a pool  which means that they are on the verge of registering as the first Rotaract entry in the 2012 Olympic city of London. (With Atlanta and Lake Placid in the USA that's 3 Olympic cities all together!)

Been reflecting on just how we have communicated details of the event around the world today, and just how things have grown beyond we ever could have imagined.

 On Facebook, we created the fanpage back in May time, and I well remember being so excited when we had our first 10 page Likes. Today there are some 309 people who've Liked the page and are following our updates, and I particularly like to see the "people" talking about this number which keeps on rising by the day. In terms of daily page impressions and views we'd reached well a potential audience over a half a million the last time I looked. Over on twitter, we're up to over 2000 tweets, and have built up a following of over 600. With more than 10 separate Retweets by Rotary International to their 120,000 followers, cumulatively our tweets have been visible to more than 1,500,000 people.

I would estimate that in addition to the 52 clubs we have confirmed and registered today, over the entire period we have had positive enquiries and interest from well over 150 clubs worldwide. Well over 1000 emails have been sent on the subject of Rotary Global Swimarathon.

But for me the really amazing part, is the legacy of all of this. That when we say 52 clubs in 15 countries, that is 52 unique and brand new fundraising events created, every single one of which has the potential to grow and become established as an annual fixture, just like our own Grantham Swimarathon that is in its 23rd year.

Those 52 contacts have in turn gathered together their fellow club members, they are going out into their communities and publicising those events, getting in touch with swimming clubs, with schools , finding swimming enthusiasts of all ages and abilities.

I logged on to write up this blog tonight and let me show you the first thing I saw in my following list. PDG Howard Tong who registered Rotary Karori yesterday is continuing to promote the event across the region http://public-image-action.blogspot.com/2012/01/not-too-late-to-make-splash-for-polio.html?showComment=1326988991697#c7114340907060778842

Just look at this fantastic event poster from the Rotary Club of Hutt Valley. Over 11,000 miles away from where I sit now, swimming so much on a different time zone they are actually taking part on Sunday 26th February. The photographs, the video footage, the human stories that will be shared by all of us as we bring together the world of Rotary on that 1 day , in that 1 hour, will be something to treasure for a lifetime.

A new video to make event website registration even easier!

38 Days to go. Thanks to Ken Donald of the Rotary Club of Polmont, District 1020 , Scotland, our second entry from Scotland and the first from this District, we are now have 49 clubs officially registered for the event.
To help ensure that everyone has as smooth a sign up experience as possible, as of today we've added a new video specifically to guide everyone through the registration process. Yes those of you who may have heard my podcast yesterday, you have yet another chance to enjoy the delights of my voice!!

Just click on the full screen or watch on youtube link and you should be able to see it in all it's "glory"

One final thought for today -  Rotary Club of Polmont are now officially the 2nd most Northern entry in Global Swimarathon. For a bit of fun, we've had a look using googlemap to see what the distance is between the most northerly - Aberdeen, and the most Southernly - Hutt Valley in New Zealand.

You know what - it's 11328 miles!! - Just underlines once again what a truly incredible event this is. That clubs so far apart in Geographical terms can all be so united in one goal - END POLIO NOW

The 1st Rotary Global Swimarathon worldwide Podcast!

39 days to go. Today marks the launch of our week long publicity campaign to try and reach every corner of the globe and share our story with every conceivable media outlet in the process.

Wonderful to see the Rotary Club of Faisalabad City one of the newest clubs in Pakistan as our 48th official registration and the 15th country now represented. As one of the few remaining countries where cases of Polio are still being discovered, it is particularly heartening to receive this entry and we are very grateful for Rotary Regional secretary and Polio Plus commitee member Mubashar Butt for registering his club.

Closing in very rapidly on 50 clubs officially registered. There are 2 new sign ups imminent in D9550 for Kurunda and Mossman Rotary clubs completing an astounding full house of all 7 Rotary Clubs registered for Global Swimarathon for Assistant District Governor Ida Portella in D9550 - huge credit also to Susanne Rea and Marcel Mcleod - extraordinary work from all of you. Added to that we expect to confirm Rotaract clubs in Romania and China as well as many more new enquiries being received every day.

Now as some of you will know, I've been actively campaigning and drumming up interest for Rotary Global Swimarathon for several months now and it occurs to me that for all the messaging and sharing, for all the emails and posts, nearly every single person who has supported us on this journey has never even spoken to me in person (except Susanne who I managed to meet in London!!)

Well thanks to the efforts of Chad Waldo of the Lee Summit Sunrise Rotary in D6040 , Missouri , USA , who via his http://www.itsrotary.com  has set up a global podcasting service to spread news of Rotary projects around the world , here's your chance to hear my less than elegant vocal tones in action!

Last week we got together via skype link and here's the results - please do listen and share with your contacts - in the spirit of media and communications week, we need your help to spread this message as far and wide as it can possibly go!!

Here's the podcast file directly http://www.itsrotary.com/storage/Show019-Swimawhat.m4a or you can go to the website, click on the show 19 - swimawhat link and listen in - any standard media player should be able to play it.

Thanks for listening as well as reading - here's to those 50 clubs by tommorow!!



It's particularly good timing for this media publicity week that thanks to the great efforts of Chad Waldo of the Lee Sunrise