Happy Rotary Day - 2 days to go!

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.

Kenya Broadcasting Corporation

http://www.kbc.co.ke/news.asp?nid=75119

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!!

Over in the Isle of Man, President Peter Whiteway of the Rotary Club of Ramsey has been on Manx Radio www.manxradio.com/newsread.aspx?id=58124 telling them all about the event.

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.

The final word for our fantastic , inspirational , magnificent UK ambassador Fran Williamson  from an interview she gave today and published on her blog http://www.fran-williamson.co.uk/3/post/2012/02/rotary-global-swim-interview.html

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!!!!!!!!!!

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.....

We've finally arrived in Swimarathon Month!

24 days to go. Woke up this morning to discover an email from the multimedia news editor of Rotary International asking for a photograph from previous Swimarathons as they will be writing a feature over at http://www.rotary.org as part of the build up to the Rotary anniversary day celebrations!

Simply Wonderful!!

Following on from yesterday's blog feature on the number of swimmers expected to take part and the fundraising targets, inspired by a post from my good friend Susanne Rea I want to highlight again the opportunity for all of you now taking part in Global Swimarathon to get other clubs in your district involved - either to supply extra swimmers / fundraising support, or even to stage separate events.

Susanne laid down the challenge out there to other Districts around the world to see which District will have the most representatives outside of the UK.

So in that spirit of "competition" - here's a current "league table" showing which Districts have the most registered clubs taking part

1. District 1070 England 12 Entries
 (Rotary Grantham's home district) As you might expect (given we're swimming at a very reasonable time of day and we've had a lot of local publicity ) - we're still leading the way with 12.
2. District 9950 Australia 7 Entries
Well Susanne - just one PHENOMENAL effort - swimming between 21:30 and 23:00 to have 7 clubs represented is just astounding - hats off to you all!!
3. District 3272 Pakistan / Afghanistan - 4 Entries
Just remarkable to have such a strong representation across the age groups of clubs in a region where Polio is still endemic
4. Joint 4th - District 9940 New Zealand - 3 clubs
1AM in the morning - say no more!!
Joint 4th - District 9320 South Africa - 3 clubs
Believe their may be even more in the region so hope they will sign up too!
Joint 4th District 7040 - Canada / USA - 3 clubs
Joint 4th District 2450 - Egypt - 3 clubs
Wonderful to have 3 clubs in Cairo joining us
5. Joint 5th - 2 clubs in D3170 India, 1010 UK, 5340 USA, 2980 India, 2241 Romania, 1110 UK, and 1280 UK


Here's the full list of clubs fhttp://www.rotaryglobalswimarathon.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=119


So there you have it - still time to get your club more entries - REMEMBER PLEASE REGISTER EVERY CLUB taking part in joint events - ONLY 1 ENTRY NEEDED FOR WORLD RECORD, but EVERY INDIVIDUAL CLUB needs to be in THE EVENT LIST

Together we can achieve that magical 100 clubs figure -

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......

One Month to Go!

30 days to go. 

This morning I joined our Swimarathon chair Roger Graves at the Grantham Meres Leisure Centre the home of Grantham Swimarathon and soon to be centre stage in the Global Swimarathon.

Standing outside freezing cold in our Global Swimarathon t-shirts, like a couple of silly school boys clutching our inflatable globe, as our picture was taken for the local paper the Grantham Journal, couldn't help but think of all the amazing events that will be happening in exactly a month's time. Could this funky space age looking late 80s creation, really be the Pool that finally Ended Polio!?

No time for glamour shoots for us though , Hello magazine will have to wait! Brilliant to get even more signups with the Rotary Club of Redwing Minnesota becoming the 7th USA club and helping us achieve a magnificent 60 clubs officially registered.

Then in this very special Olympic year for our capital city , we got the news that the Rotaract Club of Westminster had formally registered and will be staging a Swimarathon in partnership with the Rotary Club of London - London's oldest Rotary Club which last year celebrated it's 100th year and is club number 50 in the worldwide list.

So Roger says to me - can we get the London Olympic pool next? We can all dream!!

Been brilliant gathering in the details from around the world about the local events. As I mentioned yesterday we look absolutely certain to break the world record, bearing in mind the first 12 clubs to estimate participants have come up with a total of 4000 swimmers between them!!

Please keep the information coming in, and please keep on promoting your participation within your local area  and districts - just like me and Roger this morning  - we really have got the whole world in our hands!!

Same time - very different places:)

35 days to go. I've been adding a few more details into our global participants map http://g.co/maps/z5s8c and one of the things that has struck me is the amazing range of local event times for the 1 hour world record attempt.

So here is Paul's mini-guide to who's swimming when - please do let me know if I've made any errors - those time zones can get awfully confusing. On our Facebook page the other day, a contact  in South Africa (I won't mention the name) posted that they would be taking part from 10am to 11am. I double checked and discovered that South Africa is actually 2 hours in front of UK time so they would need to swim between 2pm and 3pm in the afternoon. Luckily once he'd discovered this they were able to change the event to the right time (just before all the fliers were due to go out!)

OK let's salute our 4 earliest risers first:

0100-0200

•  Rotary Club of Hutt Valley 9940 New Zealand Joanna Newlove
• Rotary Club of Feilding 9940 New Zealand Ngaire Leins
• Rotary Club of Matamata 9930 New Zealand Don Stanley  
• Rotary Club of Karori 9940 New Zealand Howard Tong / Michael Fagg 

 Then it's a relative lie in for these 2 :

0400-0500

• Rotary Club of San Diego 5340 USA William Newbern
• Rotary Club of La Jolla Sunrise 5340 USA Barbara Held

0600-0700 - early start for :

• Rotary Club of Greenhills 6760 USA Beth Matter

0700-0800 - breakfast club

• Rotary Club of Kingston 7040 Canada Lucille Davies W.J Henderson Recreation Centre Pool
• Toronto Earls Court Rotary Club Canada Pauline Nottall , Doralice Ferreira
• Rotary Club of Lake Placid 7040 USA Robert Hanna
• Rotary Club of Midtown Atlanta 6900 USA Tom Underwood

0900-1000 - mid morning

• Rotary Club of San Rafael Argentina Mariano Egea

1200-1300 - The Greenwich Mean Team

• Rotary Club of Grantham 1070 UK Roger Graves Grantham Meres Pool
• Rotary Club of Worsley 1280 UK Aled Owen
• Rotary Club of Aberdeen 1010 UK Peter Carry
• Rotary Club of Brampton and Longtown 1190 UK Kevin Walsh The Pools , Carslisle
• Rotary Club of Shepshed 1070 UK Robert Hall
• Rotary Club of Mawwdach 1180 UK Beryl Clark
• Rotary Club of Petersfield 1110 UK Lawrence Tristam
• Rotary Club of Sleaford 1070 UK John Scott
• Rotary Club of Knaresborough 1040 UK Sarah Bosomworth
• Rotary Club of South Holland 1070 UK David Walters
• Rotary Club of St Ives 1070 UK David Cole
• Rotary Club of Grantham Kesteven 1070 UK Marion Strange
• Rotary Club of Wareham 1110 UK David King
• Rotary Club of Ashby De la zouch castle 1070 UK Tony Evans
• Rotary Club of Alnwick 1030 UK Marion Long
• Rotary Club of Waterford 1030 Ireland Kjell Nolke / Donal Buckley
• Rotary Club of Newark Castle 1220 UK Dave Strange
• Rotary Club of Peterborough Werrington 1070 UK Graham Walker
• Rotary Club of Ramsey 1280 UK Peter Whiteaway
• Rotary Club of Deepings 1070 UK Peter Hibbins
• Rotary Club of Melton Mowbray Belvoir 1070 UK David Sharp
• Rotary Club of Polmont 1020 UK Ken Donald

1400-1500 - African afternoon

• Rotary Club of Mafikeng 9400 South Africa Trevor Watson-Thomas
• Rotary Club of Port Elizabeth South 9320 South Africa Noelene Jorgensen
• Rotary Club of East London Sunrise 9320 South Africa Sheryl Maastrecht/ Butch Coetzee
• Rotary Club of Jeffrey's Bay 9320 South Africa Carina De Flamingh
• Rotary Club of El Tahrir 2450 Egypt Nevine Abdelkhalek
• Rotary Club of Middelburg South Africa Mariette Stapelberg

1500-1600-  African late afternoon

• Rotary Club of Nairobi 9200 Kenya David Hastie

  1700 - 1800 - Pakistan tea time

• Rotary Club of Faisalabad City 3272 Pakistan Mubashar Butt

1730- 1830 - India tea time

• Rotary Club of Thane Suburban 3140 India Smriti Gulwady
• Rotary Club of Salem Midtown 2980 India Balasubramaniam SP
• Rotary Club of Salem Central 2980 India Vasu Rajaram
• Rotary Club of Hubli West 3170 India Satish Rao
• Rotary Club of Sawantwadi 3170 India Jayprakash Walke

2000-2100 - Supper time 3

• Rotary Club of Kwinana 9465 Australia James Sharkey 2000-2100
• Rotary Club of Zamboanga City 3850 Phillipines Riki Lim
• Rotary Club of Talisay-Cebu 3860 Phillipines April Dequito

2130-2230 - Outback time

• Rotary Club of Tennant Creek 9950 Australia Greg Marlow Tennant Creek Pool  

2200-2300 - Late night party time

• Rotary Club of Townsville Daybreak 9950 Australia Marcel McCleod
• Rotary Club of Mareeba 9950 Australia Ida Portella
• Rotary Club of Atherton 9950 Australia Kay Eccleshare
• Rotary Club of Cairns Sunrise 9950 Australia Daniel Hubner

  Overall we have 13 very different times of day -what a remarkable collective example of unity that is. All of us with one purpose -to swim for End Polio Now - utterly inspiring!
 
I can't wait to get all the footage from all the different events and put a montage together. And of course we're far from done yet with the signups -why not register your club today at http://www.rotaryglobalswimarathon.org/ - we've always got time for you!!
 
 

Guinness World Record here we come!

41 days to go. Can't tell you how fantastic it is to hear about all the different local events being planned around the world for Global Swimarathon. Have been doing some quick calculations around how many swimmers we can expect for the record attempt. As I've said before, we're inviting 500 swimmers to our Grantham Meres event. Elsewhere in the UK we've already had a figure of 240 swimmers for the 4 Peterborough clubs and 200 swimmers expected at the Knaresborough event. Add that to a figure of 60 given from the Rotary Club of Sawantwadi last night, just before they celebrated charter night on the very day India was declared Polio free for a full year, and there's 1000 swimmers already.

Now over in District 9550 Australia, the Rotary Club of Townsville , led by President Marcel McCleod are really leading the way. Not only have they brought us legendary open water swimmer marathon superstar Penny Palfrey, they have managed to book up just about every pool in the town. Get this - they are planning to have 1000 swimmers taking part!!

So there you go - 2000 swimmers in just 5 clubs. With Melton Mowbray Rotary confirmation earlier today we already have 47 clubs officially entered. The current record stands at 2533. With an average entry expected of 100 per club I genuinely believe we could be looking at between 10 and 20 thousand swimmers  - what an incredible message of unity and determination to End Polio Now!!

It's no longer a question of CAN WE BREAK THE RECORD? its simply a question of BY HOW MUCH!!

With 3 weeks to go to our own Rotary Grantham Swimarathon weekend, last night I headed down for a swimming session. I've set myself a personal goal of raising £2012 , swimming 201.2 lengths over the weekend, doing the 100 metres in Global Swimarathon and finally the Great North Swim Open Water event in Lake Windermere , Cumbria in June. http://www.justgiving.com/PaulWilsonRotary

There I was, last session of the day, in that 25 metre, 8 lane pool, swimming on my own. The thought of this quiet , empty  pool, about to be transformed into centre stage for so many thousands of people , raising so many thousands , maybe even hundreds of thousands for such an incredible cause -just takes the breath away

LETS GO FOR IT!!!

50 confirmed clubs a terrific milestone!

42 days to go. Here we are then , just over 6 weeks until we all line up together to swim for End Polio Now.

To demonstrate the true potential for widespread club participation, in the space of around 2 hours yesterday afternoon UK time, we had no less than 4 separate sign ups and one other attempted registration!

First we were joined by the Rotary Club of Ramsey , District 1280, located on the Isle of Man here in the UK, thanks to Peter Whiteway. Swiftly followed by 2 sign ups from Rotary Clubs in Peterborough District 1070. As I mentioned in my blog entry a couple of days ago, in actual fact there are 4 separate Rotary Clubs combining to stage the event, all being co-ordinated by our District Communications chair Graham Walker. Great to see Rotary Club of Deepings listed as a club entry and Rotary Club of Peterborough Werrington listed in the World Record attempt.

Next came an entry from further afield - a most welcome 4th sign up from the United States from Robert Hanna of the Rotary Club of Lake Placid - now there's a famous name from Olympic history!!

Adding in other clubs around the world that we know are definitely taking part but for whatever reason have not yet completed registration and we have well and truly achieved the 50 club markGlobal Entrants Map latest

As I mentioned, we were contacted by Chris Watts from the Rotary Club of Brackley about an issue he had during sign up. 

The error in question is something that has come up before so it's probably worth me explaining the cause and resolution here once again to avoid others having the same issue.

Basically if you go straight to the website, and look at the links on the left side of the front page - you will see a link "Enter your club " under event so the temptation is to go straight to that link. If you look closely at the error message details on screen, you will see the cause - you need to be logged on

For website security reasons, only users who have created an account and logged on to the website will be able to enter their details. 

If you look at the "Start here" section at the top of the page, it has step by step easy to follow instructions listed out for you.

In summary 

1. Go to Member Login - select create a user - enter user name and password and email

2. Check email - click on the link in email , then log in with user name and password you created

3. Go to "The Event" select "enter your club" and fill in the details

4. Go to "Guinness World Record - click on "enter your club for the record" and fill in the details

Steps 1 -4 should take no more than 5 minutes to complete , and that official registration completion, means that we are notified via email automatically and can send you the event information pack.

Any problems encountered, any time of day or night - please drop us a note to rotaryglobalswimarathon@gmail.com or contact us on the facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/rotaryglobalswimarathon and we'll be happy to help you sort it out

Heartfelt Thankyous for everyone that's helped us along the way PART II!

44 days to go. After a frenzy of sign up activity yesterday its calmed down a little which gives me time to continue with my story of the event so far and the huge thank yous that are very much due to some very key people.

Certainly plenty of activity going on though all the same - last night I spoke with our 1070 District Chair about a Peterborough Rotary Global Swimarathon event, and I'm very pleased to share that there are no fewer than 4 separate Rotary clubs there combining together to take part in the event - and none of them are on the official registration radar just yet . Coupled with new interest from Rotaract clubs in Romania, and news of 2 more clubs in District 9550 - Susanne Rea , Ida Portella, Marcel McLeod - you are doing a wonderful job in spreading the word!!, looks like we are more than on track for reaching 50 clubs entered by the end of this week.

As I said though today's post is about sharing some more of this fantastic journey into unchartered Global Rotary territory and acknowledging the amazing contributions of so many people who've helped us along the way.

Back in October, Roger Graves was given a prime speakers slot at our District 1070 conference, just prior to the main speaker the one and only Anne Widdecombe. He did an amazing job in pitching the event, and coupled with stunning video footage provided by Gordon Seabrook who unbelievably does all of our Swimarathon footage at no charge, we soon had a powerful message to share with clubs all around the world.

Here in the UK, there was a lot of RIBI social media activity around the #WorldPolioDay campaign, through working on that, we became in regular contact with District 1140 Governor Mukesh Malotra. His constant campaigning on our behalf and for the End Polio Now campaign made a huge difference in terms of attracting followers and attention. Despite a serious illness set back towards the end of the year from which I'm very pleased to say he is gradually recovering , he is still incredibly supportive to us.

During that twittering #rotaryendpolio campaign, I really enjoyed working with Sarah Bosomworth - another fairly new Rotarian from the Rotary Club of Knaresborough. I was really impressed by her efforts to get our message out there, and she very quickly took on the challenge of pitching the Global Swimarathon to her club. She completely refused to let any setbacks stand in the way and get an event set up and her determination made me have no hesitation in commiting to join her in taking part in the June 2012 Great North open water swim for End Polio Now.

On twitter, we had attempted to get in touch with various swimmers in our search for a UK ambassador. We were extremely delighted to be followed back by Fran Williamson, a recently retired Paralympic and 5 time world champion swimmer. But what really struck us on reading her blog info http://www.fran-williamson.co.uk/ was how committed she was to supporting charities -including support for local Cambridge charities and her role as ambassador for @whizzkidz a brilliant national charity to help kids with mobility issues. Fran was very supportive of our initial enquiry and put us in touch with her agent (and partner) Chris Whitaker. Right from the first conversation with Chris I knew we'd found our ambassador. Both of them were really passionate about what they do, about supporting charities and making a difference. Its been such a pleasure working with them ever since I can't tell you. We met them both in person up at the Disabilty Sports Events England National Swimming short course championships up in Sheffield in November and they were just the nicest, most down-to-earth people you could ever meet.

We had another special trip to Sheffield back in early November. Our Swimarathon Chairman - and I'll get to the thanks for him in another separate blog - he truly deserves it - was nominated for Fundraiser of the year by the National ASA governing body of swimming , and we were guests at the Swimtastic awards 2011.

What an incredible day we had I'll never forget it. Along with all the other award nominees , ordinary every day swimmers of all ages from the length and breadth of the land , we spent an afternoon "swimming with the stars" - including the whole team GB waterpolo ladies olympic squad, Divers, synchronized swimmers , Junior , Olympic and Paralympic swimmers. As a life-long sports fan I was completely star struck - but what was most striking was just how friendly and approachable everyone was. Naturally we brought the Global Swimarathon tshirts along for signatures, but what was great was just how interested everyone was in the event. The Team GB Waterpolo ladies, including ex Grantham player Vickie Bowen, Angie Winstanley Smith and many others all said they'd be up for taking part even though they were likely to be in Australia. We also met Claire Cashmore, a Leeds based swimmer and friend of Fran Williamson, who said her Dad was in Rotary and she'd love to help - she certainly did that - she's now special guest at the Knaresborough event - told you Sarah was good at organizing it!!

Roger actually won the special achievement award in recognition of 22 years raising £500,000 for local causes - just wonderful. Here's the moment captured on my dodgy camera video, introduced by swimming legend Steve Parry http://youtu.be/02t9hjqXqgY

To be continued in Part III coming soon!

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

An Incredible Global community of swimmers united to End Polio Now!

46 days to go.

Another milestone reached, as we can announce our 40th full registered club taking part in the event.
The Rotary Club of Mawddach in District 1180 Wales, became our first entry from Wales, and our 17th overall in Great Britain and Ireland - many thanks to Rotarian Beryl Clark for registering your club.

We're reaching ever more countries as well - just today Ellen Yu from the Rotaract club of Shanghai, China confirmed that their club had voted to take part - so very much look forward to them joining the list.

Sometimes, rather than words, a simple picture will suffice. Here's a first draft map capturing all of the clubs signed up to date around the world - just wonderful to see it all here

View Rotary Global Swimarathon participants map

Start Spreading the news - 50 days to go!

Into the final 50 days of the countdown - pinch me I still must be dreaming!!

Just to underline the truly global nature of this event, I've just spent some time responding to questions from a journalist at the Mareeba Express newspaper in Queensland Australia!  We have had a phenomenal take up down-under (especially considering the time differences involved) with now 6 Australian and 3 New Zealand clubs confirmed as taking part.

What I really love doing at the moment is "googling" for Rotary Global Swimarathon and looking for new articles about the event- Try it yourself!!

Here's a selection of press and blog coverage - please take a look!!

http://www.ribi.org/news/articles/rotary-global-swimarathon-makes-a-splash-worldwide

http://www.rotaract.org.uk/index.php?cat=content&page=news_sheet&NewsID=111

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

http://openwaterpedia.com/index.php?title=Global_Swimarathon

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

http://loneswimmer.com/tag/swimarathon/

http://public-image-action.blogspot.com/2011/12/i-received-tweet-this-week.html

http://www.granthamjournal.co.uk/news/local/swimarathon_chairman_receives_an_award_created_in_his_honour_1_3253229

Of course, we want to keep all the communication lines flowing around the world. If you are a twitterer, please use #rotaryglobalswim at every opportunity to talk about the event and please follow us and encourage others to do so at http://www.twitter.com/rotaryglobeswim

Get in touch any time on our facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/rotaryglobalswimarathon

And send us an email at rotaryglobalswimarathon@gmail.com

Let's make this the biggest and best Rotary World Wide event ever!!

First Irish club registered / event news and updates

53 Days to go....

Just had confirmation thanks to the brilliant efforts of Irish Open Water legend Donal Buckley - check out his fantastic website at http://loneswimmer.com/ that the Rotary Club of Waterford D1063, Ireland have just become the 36th Club officially registered and the 11th country now represented - Here's the full list of entries http://www.rotaryglobalswimarathon.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=74&Itemid=124

As well as those already fully signed up we continue to get multiple new enquiries on a daily basis from Rotary Clubs across the Globe so we're hoping the list of entries will rapidly expand to 100 or more by the end of this month!

Just take a look at some of the quotes and feedback we've had on the website

‎#Rotaryglobalswim - Just published a great selection of messages on what people are saying about the event around the world! http://www.rotaryglobalswimarathon.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=81&Itemid=138

Here in the UK RIBI (Rotary in Great Britain and Ireland) are now centrally promoting the event to every club in the Country

 Sign up and dive in to save millions of children from polio:http://www.ribi.org/news/articles/rotary-global-swimarathon-makes-a-splash-worldwide

Rotary Global Swimarathon makes a splash worldwide - RIBI

www.ribi.org

We've even been featured in Rotary Down Under magazine - have a look on page 35

features a full page article (P35) on Penny Palfrey's incredible @EndpollioNow challenge and her support for Global Swimarathon http://flipflashpages.uniflip.com/2/26587/49598/pub/ - 50,000 readers - very exciting!!

Rotary Down Under

flipflashpages.uniflip.com

Please please keep on spreading the word - talk to your club and get signed up if you can - be part of something amazing!!