You know when you have one of those mornings when you wake up and you decide that today will be the day that you make changes; you WILL do all those things you've been thinking about doing, you WILL finish the little jobs that you started and didn't finish...You plan to be productive and do something worthwhile from now on?
Imagine now that you share a house with your best friend and you both wake up feeling particularly motivated, - what do you do? Well, we don't know what you do, you but we plan 112-mile walks to London. Yes, it was literally as simple as that...
"Sal, I want to do a sponsored walk."
"Me too."
"To London?"
"Yes, for Mercury Phoenix Trust?"
"Sure!"
"When's good?"
"September?"
"The 17th?"
"Sure!"
"Okay!"
And there you have it, 10 minutes later we had e-mailed the Mercury Phoenix Trust and 20 minutes later we're out of pyjamas and into trainers and we're walking 5 miles to begin our training.
As random as it may seem, there was some method behind our madness.
A couple of months back we took part in Project 4 Awesome, an annual internet event where YouTube users are encouraged to submit a video, promoting a charity that they support in order to spread awareness throughout the community. Having frequented our favourite musical We Will Rock You several times, we had become aware of the The Mercury Phoenix Trust and so decided to talk about all the wonderful work that they do there.
We received really positive feedback from the YouTube community and a great deal of gratitude from the Mercury Phoenix Trust, which then gave us an enthusiasm to find other ways of helping.
The Mercury Phoenix Trust was founded in 1991 by the remaining members of Queen after the premature death of front man Freddie Mercury, Their aim was to raise money to distribute to other HIV and AIDS charities worldwide - with particular emphasis on raising AIDS awareness in the developing world.
So why walk to the West End?! Well, it just happens to be our favourite place in the world. Our passion is theatre, particularly musical theatre, and the majority of our disposable income is spent on indulging that passion. Therefore, it seemed only right to start our walk at our home theatre, The Birmingham Hippodrome, on Friday 17th September and all being well, one week and 112 miles later arrive outside The Dominion Theatre, home of We Will Rock You, where we first became aware of the Mercury Phoenix Trust. Of course in our heads, on our arrival, Brian May will be on the roof of the theatre playing his guitar, while the cast of the show line the streets singing We are the Champions.....perhaps not!
In order to make this crazy idea a little more sensible than it sounds, the plan is to walk approximately 16 miles a day for seven days, stopping in hotels and guesthouses along the way. Planning accommodation isn't as easy as it sounds when you are relying on the generosity of strangers! Staying in hotels for a week can be costly, which is why we have perfected our fluttering eyelashes and puppy dog eyes in an attempt to persuade hotel managers to donate rooms to as an alternative form of sponsorship. So far, we have had a room donated to us by The Falcon Inn, Hatton, for the first night of our travels and have had one of our lovely supporters organise a hotel for our last night. So just the rest of the week we need to worry about now! In an ideal world, someone would come along and offer to fund our accommodation, but until then we're still on the scrounge!
So, from now until September, in between work and play, we are squeezing in as much training as possible - much to the delight of our dogs. Honestly, going out for a four-mile walk after a full day at work is not always desirable, but 112 miles is a long way to walk and so we have to put in the work to ensure that we achieve our goal, and raise plenty of money for the Mercury Phoenix Trust along the way!
We have of course been busy trying to drum up as much support as possible through Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. We have shamelessly approached popular musical theatre performers to retweet for us, which some of them have been kind enough to do. Our local newspaper have been in contact with us this week and so we will be landing on every doormat in Solihull next week, and we hope to keep spreading the word in order to raise plenty of money for the Mercury Phoenix Trust.
Walk to WestEnd is going to be a massive challenge for us, but one that we will be so proud of achieving. However, aside from how it will make us feel, the important part is how much money we can raise in order to help HIV and AIDS charities worldwide. All support and donations are most gratefully received. Every bit of sponsorship we receive gives us that extra motivation to go out and get training! www.justgiving.com/walktowestend
