2 days to go. 16 months ago, when our swimarathon chair Roger Graves first dreamed up this incredible event, this was the target date for the event Rotary Day in 2012 (then we realised it fell on a Thursday -not the best for multiple swimmers). As a very proud Rotary Global History Fellowship Board member for Zone 17 in the UK, and an ordinary club member, in fact just as a citizen of the world I'm very proud to celebrate our 107th anniversary today. The #rotaryendpolio message is spreading far and wide, from the fantastic BBC coverage to the iconic landmarks lighting up the sky.
It's brilliant to see so many Rotarians, Rotaractors, Interactors, working hard on the social network forums to get our message out there.
Let me tell all of you who will be with us on Saturday that there is now no doubt that what we we will achieve together around the world will most definitely spread that message far and wide, it will most certainly become part of Rotary history, and we will rightfully claim our own unique piece of sporting history in the process. Seems particularly appropriate on this historic Rotary day to say a huge thankyou to fellow RGHF Executive and Board members, Nevine Abdelkhalek in Egypt, Prakash Sarasawat in India, Sajid Baseer Shaikh in Pakistan, Susanne Rea in Australia, and Tim Tucker in the UK, lead magnificently by RGHF CEO Jack Selway in the USA , who have made a very significant contribution to spreading this event in their Districts as well as in many cases directly taking part and running events. Very very proud to be a member - would recommend it to anyone -
http://www.rghf.org/join/index.htm
What's most extraordinary to me as we come into the final hours of preparation is just how every out there seems to be stepping up to a whole new level to bring their events together. Take our very latest prospective entry from the Rotary Club of Vancouver Washington , USA. They found out about Global Swimarathon very late in the day, got in touch and I explained that we need at least 25 swimmers for each event to be counted in the record and that in that part of the world its a 4am swim. You know what, even with only 3 swimmers confirmed and less than 40 hours to go - they are going for it anyway -The pool is booked for 4am , 3 of them will swim and be sponsored for the full hour if necessary, but they are going all out to get 25 even at that unearthly hour.
Great news stories coming in from every corner of the globe. In Egypt , Nevine confirmed tonight that they have 170 swimmers already confirmed - not only that - listed every single one out on the facebook group - just brilliant !! So that's 6.5% of the numbers we need in just 1 entry and its not even Friday here in the UK yet!
Spotted from over in Kenya, a full promotion for our event on Kenyan Broadcasting Corporation the number one news media channel in the country - take a look at this. Very well done to David Hastie and all the team at Rotary Nairobi.
Over in Cairns, Queensland , Australia, Susanne Rea has discovered a Zumba World Record has just been set there - so naturally she's marketing the Cairns Global Swimarathon event to the max as a chance to break 2 World Records in a week - pure genius.
Open Water Irish Swimming star Nuala Moore has got in touch today to say although she can't organize a group event, she will head out in to the 7 degree Irish sea and swim a solo kilometre for End Polio Now - now that is pure commitment!!
Current Paralympic Team GB star Claire Cashmore, in the midst of heavy training for Paralympic trials in April, has messaged everyone on twitter that even though she's doing a full 2 hour heart racing training session on the morning, she'll be at Knaresborough and will take part.
Her partner and managing agent Chris Whitaker will be joining us over the weekend, and will be our special guest social media monitor in the build up to and during the magical hour.
We will be geared up to tweet and retweet, facebook post and share , receive email updates and through the dedicated phone line receive texts and calls , we're even setting up some skype sessions.
We'll try and collate an unofficial round the world figure on how many swimmers have taken part as soon as we can on the day, and we want to see those videos and pictures as soon as you can get them to us to share.
#RotaryDay is coming to a close, but we all know that for us the biggest pool party in the world yet to come -
HERE WE GO!!!!!!!!!!
