A Lincolnshire man is preparing to take on his “last remaining possible coast to coast paddling challenge” when he gets in his canoe to raise more money for emergency response charity LIVES, for the third and final time.
Mark Hennis’ first challenge saw him canoe across England from Liverpool to Goole in December 2020. He then canoed across Scotland from Fort William to Inverness for his second challenge, as well as taking on a climb of Ben Nevis, in August 2021.
The 51-year-old has already raised £10,000 for LIVES from the first two challenges, funding a defibrillator for his local village of Ruskington.
Mark is hoping to push the total as high as he can, which comes after he had initially promised to “never go paddling again”. He has already raised £3,620.20 towards his final challenge through raffles, quizzes and his Facebook event fundraising page.
Further pub quizzes and raffles will take place in the coming days.
The latest fundraiser is described by Mark as his “last remaining possible coast to coast paddling challenge”. It will see him canoe from Dublin (Irish Sea) to Limerick (North Atlantic Ocean), a journey over 200km long and including a large 24 mile Loch.
Mark hopes the challenge will take no more than nine days and he will start it on April 12.
He said: “LIVES is a charity close to my heart and I’m really pleased to be able to support them. This year, I’ve got help from my friend, Jim McClory, as my support driver, who I hope can help keep everyone up to date with my progress.
“This is another massive challenge, but the beautiful scenery is often a good distraction!”
Mark describes his latest fundraiser as his “last remaining possible coast to coast paddling challenge”.
Mark will be posting photos and videos before and during his fundraising challenge online here.
Posting on the page, he said: “After promising never to go paddling again I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do one last challenge before my fast ageing body gives in.”
He added: “Over the last two trips thanks to you amazing people we have raised well over £10,000 for LIVES and would very much appreciate your support big or small to this worthy charity that everyone at some point has had some dealings with (often without realising it!).”
LIVES responded to more than 11,000 emergency calls last year across Lincolnshire. Each call a LIVES responder attends is due to someone calling 999, from breathing difficulties to cardiac arrest and road traffic collisions to industrial accidents.
The responses are funded by the generosity of people and 100% of all donations from Mark’s challenge will go directly to LIVES.
Rachel Hay, community fundraising manager at LIVES, said: “LIVES provides the training, on-going support and lifesaving equipment each responder needs. Every week we attend around 11 cardiac arrests, each and everyone one of these is funded by people like Mark who take on challenges and gain sponsorship, we can’t thank Mark enough.”
The Lincolnite welcomes your views. All comments are reactively-moderated and must obey the house rules. Please stay on topic and be respectful of other readers.
Nominations are open for schools and education settings to be recognised in the 2022 Lincolnshire Education Excellence Awards.
The event is organised by Stonebow Media, publishers of The Lincolnite, to celebrate the best school and teachers in Greater Lincolnshire.
The headline sponsors making the awards possible are Lincoln College Group.
Twelve categories are now open for nominations. The deadline for nominations is June 3, with a judging lunch scheduled for June 7.
Nominations are open from parents, carers, friends, families or education settings themselves, so if you know someone who deserving of winning now is the time to vote!
The awards ceremony will be held at the Engine Shed on July 7.
It’s been a week since the controversial statue of Margaret Thatcher was installed in Grantham’s St Peter’s Hill.
The £300,000 bronze monument immediately caused a stir and debate from both supporters and opponents of the first female Prime Minister of the UK.
Within hours of its 7am installation last Sunday, it had already been egged by a man later revealed to be 59-year-old Jeremy Webster, a deputy director at the Attenborough Arts Centre at the University of Leicester.
Mr Webster’s mother-in-law recently described his actions as “childish”.
Quoted in the MailOnline she said: “Margaret Thatcher lasted a long time in power. She was a trailblazer as the first woman prime minister and she had such energy, even though I know she slept very little.
“I’m very surprised to hear about all of this [egg throwing]. I’m going to have to call my daughter. I wouldn’t have thought Jeremy would be the sort of person to do this. It seems very childish to me – he has a responsible job.”
There have been reports of other antisocial behaviour taking place including people urinating up the statue, but investigations into these are yet to be confirmed by officials.
Away from the statue itself, others took to social media to react to the new monument.
Twitterer @BolsoverBeast thought Mr Webster’s actions should be expanded as a way to… get more people involved?
I think it would be a good idea to put Thatcher’s statue on a low loader and tow it slowly around the country so that we all have a chance to throw something at it. pic.twitter.com/uftMqr0LgR
— Chloe Schlosberg (@ChloeSchlosberg) May 19, 2022
Some called back to the fate of other statues
@Irritatedllama called back to the fate of slave trader Edward Colston who was thrown into the Bristol Harby in June 2020.
It's absolutely disgraceful that people are throwing eggs at the Margaret Thatcher statue in Grantham! We need to deploy a taskforce to give it jolly good wash!#Granthampic.twitter.com/RKftKUls4u
It wasn’t long before a parody account of the statue was set up on Twitter – nor before “she” was interacting with other parody accounts.
It was awful. I could see almost all of Grantham
— That Statue of Thatcher (@thatcher_statue) May 18, 2022
A… positive view?
There were supporters of the statue, however, Darren Grimes from GBNews was one of the few popular posts calling on people not to “give in to threats of petty vandalism”. He later posted the statue should be in parliament – where it was previously rejected from.
I honestly think Margaret Thatcher would have found this first round of petty vandalism of her statue to be utterly hilarious.
The statue looks absolutely glorious.
Almost a decade on from her passing, she’s still winding them up!
Some, like @Jonnyhibberd were more measured in their response.
I don't see a problem with a Thatcher statue and I also don't see a problem with people throwing eggs at it. Thatcher is an important part of our history, and so is what a lot of people thought about her.
— Jonathan Hibberd 🇺🇦 (@Jonnyhibberd) May 18, 2022
Whatsapp
