99 Clubs officially entered - WE ARE THIS CLOSE!

9 days to go. Wonderful to get two new entries today taking us so close to the magic 100.

Thanks to Colonel Sajid Baseer Shaikh, we now have the oldest club in Pakistan taking part, the Rotary Club of Lahore - wonderful. Entry number 99 was from a triathlon club near Limerick Ireland- they have a pool and a beautiful lake ready to be used and are going to get in touch with their local Rotary Club.

It's school holiday week at the moment here, and on a short trip out to an indoor play centre in the nearby market town of Sleaford, I couldn't help but smile as we drove through the town centre and saw a huge 4 metre wide barrier above the road proclaiming "Rotary Swimarathon - 24th-25th February". One of 16 clubs in our home District 1070 taking part, Sleaford had already got their own local swimarathon booked before the Rotary Global Swimarathon plans were announced, but have built in the world record attempt into their event - fantastic!

As we wait for the 100th entry to come in, news today of a new Rotaract club in Bosnia Herzegovina wanting to join in, which would take us to 22 countries! Also had confirmation that one of our local RAF airforce bases are definitely going to be joining us with their own event.

Tommorow, Rotarian Barry Phillips from our club and his wife Inner Wheel President Veronica are flying out to Kenya for their holidays. They will be hosted during their visit by local Rotarians from the Rotary Club of Nairobi, and as we've mentioned before on this blog, they will actually be able to take part at a Global Swimarathon event in Nairobi on 25th February. This is one amazing event!!

Rotary Global Swimarathon - bringing the world together!!

40 days to go. A few days ago I wrote about an extraordinary coincidence , where Janet Mills who'd left Grantham 11 years ago, discovered from her Rotarian Travel Agent Ida Portella in Mareeba , Queensland that Mareeba would be joining in the Global Swimarathon. So wonderful to have a representative of our town , who's attended our local swimarathon events all those 1000s of miles away on the day.

Well my friends, it seems that the laws of chance have smiled on us once again!
Just speaking with Barry Phillips of the New Generations committee in our club today, and one of the original organizers of our very first event back in 1990. He was saying that unfortunately he's away on holiday on the day of the Global Swimarathon.

Turns out he'll be in Kenya, and more specifically it turns out he'll be in Nairobi, Kenya on the 25th February 2012

Well now, a few weeks back, thanks to the efforts of David Hastie, the Rotary Club of Nairobi officially registered for the event!

So, not only do we have Grantham represented Australia, we now have the opportunity for one of our very own club members to join in whilst all the way over in Kenya (assuming he remembers to pack bathing trunks!!)

Just shows how truly global the event has become - really, anything is possible

In the coming weeks and days, let's work together to get many more clubs signed up, and let us show the world just how remarkable the Rotary family really is.....