ride4acure

Last night we held the second ride4acure-Hannah Rose Melanoma Research Fund dinner dance and auction. Wow what a fabulous night of music, dancing, great food and  entertainment. We raised a total of $11 600 which is a beautiful reflection of the generosity and heartfelt support for ride4acure! Go Kempsey and supporting communities. We had people travel from across the ranges from Armidale, Tamworth, Moree and Narranderra – 1100 kms away! What a top crew of supporters!  Hannah I know would be so proud of everyone getting behind ride4acure to support research!

I have less than a month now before Ihit the road with the ride. Am cointinuing to train, seek sponsorship and create educational resources to use on the trip when talking with students and communities en route….not to mention plan the logistics of being on the road for nearly six weeks! Am looking for a dog sitter for my two jack russells Hamish and Clancy (who are a bit ‘hang dog’ about being left out of the party for this road trip.) I am also still awaiting confirmation of sponsorship for a motorhome or caravan  for the journey! If anyone has a ‘connection’ in the industry please let me know!

KEMPSEY ride4acure CATTLE SALE: Today we held the ride4acure cattle sale at Kempsey Saleyards. A fantastic day, with three head of cattle donated by Coggie and Linda Wilshusen of McCoys Creek, Moparrabah via Kempsey, Steve & Bryson, Pappinbarra via Wauchope, Roma Moss , ‘Ngambi’ Duri via Tamworth. Together the three head of cattle netted $1660, plus we sold another $417.50 worth of raffle tickets, t-shirts & vests!  So a very productive day with a profit for the fund of  $2 077.50. Thank you Kempsey and visitors  for your support! 

Now it’s 6.30pm and I am about to go out to the gym for our ‘Girls Night In’ to raise money for our Relay for Life team, I’m on the Curves Gym team and we have the relay on 17 & 18th October just before I set sail on my bike ride….. we’re having a talent quest tonight and quite fittingly am doing a little performance poetry with a rendition of Banjo Pattersons all time great poem, ‘Mulga Bills Bicycle’, how fitting.

Awesome day on Wednesday. Rode from home to Port Macquarie return 117kms. The best part was catching up with Lloyd Newell from Gordon Street Cycles in Port who has now generously given me some sponsorship with a new bike and gear for the big road trip to Melb! I was speechless with this amazing gift of generosity! Take delivery next Wednesday and am very excited little Vegemite right now.

In the meantime spent the day yesterday selling raffle tickets and ride4acure merchandise on the streets in Kempsey at the Clyde Street Market. Had a fantastic day meeting many people who share their stories with me of their journey’s with melanoma and cancer. Frequently  I hear is that ride4acure is the first ‘thing’ people have found that directly talks about and supports research into melanoma and that they can give to…as the leading cancer in young people melanoma ought to be top of the tree, the highest priority for research.  Not to mention that at least three times yesterday I had older people tell me they’d lost their husbands/wives to melanoma. Now I find this amazing as I live in a town of barely 10 000 people, 28 000 in the whole shire…..I was gonna say ‘do the maths on that’ but of course I suck at maths myself and couldn’t work out the %’s…hhhmmmmnnn! but I’m saying that’s a lot of melanoma stories for a small town eh?

TRAINING UPDATE: My training is full steam ahead with weekly rides of over 100km range plus my weekly total over the 200km mark. I’m also keeping up with gym training 2-3 times a week and stretching each day.  I’m getting so strong and feel positively dangerous! I face the normal challenges of the-learner-intraining-soon-to-be-long-distance-cyclist which includes such things as headwinds, failing brakes, bugs in my eyes, overheating, sweat stinging and streaming into eyes, swooping magpies EVERYWHERE, I had half a dozen attacks on Sunday on a 102km ride, the magpies swoop from behind and ‘clink’ my helmet with their claws or beaks, I sing out to them to ‘Go Hard Maggie!’ I had the thought of sticking some of those crafty eye balls people use on toys onto the top of my helmet, however I decided that would definately shift me right into the FREAKO category of bike rider!  I’ve seen a couple of other riders with 20cm stick thingo’s poking out of their helmets (I did wonder at the time if they were OK —hhmm hhhmmm…) but now me thinks they’re one step ahead of me and my marauding magpie mates!!

CATTLE SALE: 19th Sept at Kempsey Sale Yards two head of stock donated to date from Coggie & Linda Wilshusen of McCoys Creek Moparrabah, who have donated a Brahman steer we’ve nicknamed “Daffodil”,  and also Steve & Anne Bryson from Beechwood with a young limousin bull. This is an awesome donation from very generous livestock producers.

DINNER DANCE and Auction: Saturday 26th Sept Kempsey Golf Club 6pm. At the , dance away to “The Nobodies”, who were awesome at our previous dinner dance on 5th Sept.  Tickets are selling fast and are available from Silver Dollar Saddlery in Belgrave St Kempsey ph Suzie Argue on 0265621899 to enquire about tickets and bookings.

Raffle 'chicks' in KMC

Today was the first day of selling raffle tickets. Had a great time talking with people on the streets in Kempsey and sold about 40  tickets! The raffle prizes are awesome. Am including a photo of two of Hannah’s good mates Garnei and Sam, who gave me some moral support whilst on the street selling tickets….Go Girls:-))