A team of 14 runners took part in the British 10K, London Run on Sunday 11^th July 2010 to raise funds and awareness for the Brittle Bone Society. Money is still coming in with the current total sitting at approximately £2500. Well done to all who took part!

Theresa Cannings and her band of faithful volunteers braved Scottish summer downpours to hold a stall at the Dundee Rotary Club’s Annual Gala Day in Dundee City Centre on Saturday 10^th July 2010. Fun was had despite the weather and the Tombola organised by Theresa proved extremely popular on the day. (Photo -Betty and Theresa)

Yasmin and her friend Maria took part in a sponsored silence to raise money for people affected by Brittle Bones in memory of Vincent Edward West. To support the girls and Yasmin’s mum please visit their Just Giving Page by following this link – Tracy’s page

Tasha Shackell, her mum Janet and friends have done some more fundraising for the BBS - they held a coffee morning where they sold home-made cakes and bric a brac. They raised nearly £300! A very successful morning.  (photo left to right – Kim, Awen and Janet)

The Brittle Bone Society Charity Shop had a stall at the Ancrum Road Primary School Fair on 19th June 2010. Christine Hope (Fundraising Officer), Theresa Cannings (Shop Manager) along with shop volunteers Julie, Gabriel (left) and Betty had a lovely day selling books, jewellery, toys and clothing.

Cycling John O’Groats to Lands End for the Brittle Bone Society

I have always been a rather active and adventurous person, taking on challenges and seeing how far I can push myself. Until this year my biggest adventure had been trekking over 100 miles in the Alps on the Tour Du Mont Blanc, in thick snow. I've scaled many mountains, climbed many rock faces and even sailed on a Tall Ship for 9 days. So when my boyfriend, Pete, expressed an interest to cycle the length of the UK, a distance of almost 1000 miles I was there!

The ride took several months of planning, sorting out the route, finding campsites for each stage of the journey, sorting out what kit we needed, not to mention building up the fitness required to achieve such a feat! We also recruited Pete’s Mum and Dad as our valuable support team throughout the ride! Our aim was to complete the ride in 11 days. That meant covering over 90 miles a day for much of the ride.

During the planning stages, on the 9th April 2010, I received the very sad news that my cousin Robert Dandridge had passed away. He had struggled with Osteogenesis Imperfecta all his life, and during his last few months had battled with pneumonia, which proved fatal due to his severe OI. Remembering Robert's amazing smile and cheeriness, and how well he coped with everything in the face of adversity, I felt that my End to End ride should have a more important purpose to it. So I set about raising sponsorship for the Brittle Bones Society so that they could help improve the quality of life for more people like Robert. I knew that the ride would be incredibly challenging and being able to do the ride in memory of Robert would spur me on through the tough times!

Several months later at 6.45am on May 31st 2010, we were standing at the Last House, John O' Groats, having our pictures taken before pedalling the first of many miles down the length of the UK.

The first 5 days through Scotland were the best part of the journey for me. The scenery was breath-taking, particularly cycling the north coast of Scotland and going up the Glencoe Valley. We saw so much wildlife and different types of birds, including a huge number of buzzards and an eagle. Some of the most memorable sights were cycling the length of Loch Ness and Loch Lomand under clear blue skies early in the morning when the water was so still it was like a mirror.

Travelling out of Scotland and into Cumbria we encountered our toughest hill climbs of the ride, scaling the 1500ft of Kirkstone Pass and the 1400ft of Callow Fell in the Lancashire Forest all in the same day! Coupled with the smaller hills we cycled that day, we racked up a total of over 6000ft of ascent in a single days ride!

The middle part of the ride proved very tough for both of us. Our energy was dwindling and the whole ride became much more of a psychological challenge as well as a physical one. Many of the days we cycled between 90 and 95 miles. On our 9^th day we had over 98 miles to cover from Gloucestershire to Somerset. As luck would have it we were also greeted with the worst weather of the entire ride – torrential rain! Sometimes it would rain so hard that the road surface looked alive with the amount of rain drops bouncing back up off the road! To make matters even worse, I had to contend with a now rather painful knee problem which only seemed to get worse with every pedal push!

Once Day 9 was out the way we were on the homestretch with only 78 miles to cover on Day 10, and 48 miles on Day 11.  With my growing knee problem and also a flared up Achilles tendon to deal with, we took the shortest most direct route – straight down the A30! It was a great road to cycle, with huge sweeping hills allowing you to build up terrific speeds on the downhills! I maxed at 47.3mph on one section!

We rolled over the finish line at 10.45am on 10^th June 2010 after 938.8 miles of cycling in 11 days! It was definitely the hardest thing I’ve ever done and was a huge achievement. There were days when I was so exhausted both mentally and physically that each push of the pedals was a huge effort! It has all proved tremdously worthwhile though - in total the ride raised £3655.82 for the Brittle Bones Society. I’m sure my cousin Robert would be well pleased!

Naomi Dandridge

To View more photos and a details on how the trip went please visit Naomi's blog page at http://jogleforbrittlebones.blogspot.com

Kay Tate along with friends and family, including BBS Trustee Sam Renke, did a bucket collection in Newcastle City Centre on Saturday 29th May and raised a brilliant £358.35. Well done to everyone involved and a big thank you to Kay for organising the fundraising event.

Oli Boundy, Chloe Porter, Matthew Porter took part in the 2010 BUPA Great Manchester Run and have raised over £600. Oliver said

“Everything went really well thank you. We all completed the course, without stopping! Matthew came in at 1 hour and 5 minutes, Chloe 1 hour 11 minutes and I finished in 1 hour and 12 minutes. We had a great day and all wore our BBS t-shirts. “

Six months ago, without the kids knowing, Phil Griffith signed his family up for a 20k walk across the South Downs. The beauty of this type of event is that there is no minimum sponsorship requirement.

The family event took place on 5th May 2010 and so far the family have raised almost £1500 for the Brittle Bone Society. Should anyone wish to sponsor them retrospectively they can do so at their JustGiving site. 

Well done to the whole family and a big thank you form everyone at the BBS. 

On Sunday, 31st January, 2010, Amy Shemilt, a BBS member, was involved in raising a staggering £15,015.16 from a charity luncheon.

The luncheon was a joint charity event between the Brittle Bone Society and Myeloma UK. The luncheon was held after Mr and Mrs Paul Schofield kindly offered the use of their daughter’s wedding marquee following the marriage of Mr and Mrs Trotter on Saturday, 30th January, 2010.

The luncheon raised funds from ticket sales, bar sales, two raffle themed prize draws and a fantastic promise auction, all organised and run by the organising committee.

The event was a lot of hard work for all involved but everyone agreed that the day was a perfect example of outstanding generosity, teamwork and determination. It really was a fantastic way to raise a huge sum of money and awareness of two wonderful charities.

Paul Skidmore is the father of an OI child, Andrea, and lives in the Oxfordshire area of the UK.  Andrea was born with OI in 2006 and Paul began to find out about massage as a way of helping relieve pain and also as tension relief  for his daughter Alba and wife Lourdes.  He has spent the last 4 years working towards his qualifications and is now fully qualified.  Paul has come along to our last two conferences and gave a talk and demonstration and last year provided free massage to all those who wanted it.

Paul's current venture is to approach companies in his area offering a morning of free massage to their employees allowing issues such as Repetitive Strain Injury to be addressed.  Paul is going to suggest that donations are made to the Brittle Bone Society by all those taken part, he is hoping to do this on a regular basis.

To find out more about Paul's work, visit Paul's website www.paulskidmore-therapies.co.uk

David Errington from Reading ran on our behalf in the London Marathon and finished it in an impressive 4 hours 25 minutes!

Well done David and thank you on behalf on all the members of the Brittle Bone Society.

So far he has raised £2,149 and you will see in his photo how he stood out in the crowd, wearing red.

He also had “Daddy Cool” printed on the back of his shirt!

Ruth Andrews from Rugeley, Staffordshire for all the fundraising she and her family and friends continue to do on our behalf. They attended various fairs last year and raised more than £350.

Ruth says she is not doing anything new - just tombola, name the dog, cakes sales, selling small gifts and cards which she has made and she has roped in her family and friends to help her, so if anyone is interested in doing something similar, please get in touch with Christine at the office in Dundee.

Rosemary Donkin, one of our Trustees, has done yet another two can collections this year – she collected £510 at Waitrose in Newbury and £230 at Sainsburys, making a total of £740.

We are very grateful to Rosemary, who does so many can collections to help the Brittle Bone Society members.

In July the lodge raised money for us, in memory of one of their members, Lucas Pickles, who died in 2005. Lucas was a very active and inspirational member of both Kenneth Kinnersley Lodge and Connaught Royal Arch Chapter.

At a lodge barbeque in July a cheque for £1200 was presented to Paul Lewis who represented the Brittle Bone Society.

The photograph is of Paul with Lucas's parents.

Alec Jenkins, who was only diagnosed with OI earlier this year.

He and his friends came up with a great fundraising idea.

This was called the “Pennies for Bones” day when the pupils covered a huge skeleton drawing with coppers saved from their pocket money.

They hope to have a fundraising event every half term every year until Alec leaves school.

This was a great idea, and a great success, raising more than £200.

Our local Dobbies Garden World store, just outside Dundee, chose to support the BBS as part of their fundraising over the festive season.

Staff and members went to the opening event with members of the Monifieth Amateur Dramatics (MAD), who have regularly supported us.

We have already received £666.70 from Dobbies and expect some more soon

Many thanks to Troy Parker from Southampton who did a 30-mile cycle and 30-mile run between London and Brighton, on the same day!

It sounds like a lot of hard work but he raised £200 for us which is much appreciated.

Troy is thinking about doing another event for the BBS this year.

The Marshall Family of Woodhall Spa regularly hold fundraising events for the BBS and have recently sent us another £520.This included a £50 donation from the Inner Circle of Woodhall Spa, the fourth time they have made a £50 donation to the coffee morning.

We would like to thank them, Sheila and Derrick Marshall and all their family and friends for all their hard work.

Rosie Cameron, a member from Edinburgh contacted us to let us know that her nephew, Craig Sutton, would raise funds for us at the Great North Run.

Craig is a regular runner at these events and, according to Rosie, he is usually much quicker than the 2 hours 7 minutes it took this year, however it was fast enough to raise an amazing £6,079.66.

In 2008 we were very lucky to receive two donations of ballgowns, wedding and bridesmaid dresses. Lesley-Ann Starrett, one of our Trustees, brought 70 dresses to our Dundee conference and Monifieth Amateur Dramatic (MAD) also generously donated over 50 new dresses.

On 1st November 2008 a Ballgown Bonanza was held at the Charity Shop and raised over £400.

We still have dresses left and hope to hold another sale in the spring of 2009

Last year six people ran for the Brittle Bone Society and between them, they raised over £1,600.

This year we have twelve places and they’re being taken up already!

If running with over 26,000 people through central London, and past many world famous historic landmarks, appeals to you please contact Christine by phone at 01382 204446, or e-mail chris@brittlebone.org.

No the BBS has not been on TV pitching plans to millionaire business people. The “Dragons” are from Dragon Clay Club of Horsham, West Sussex which organised a Bank Holiday Clay Shoot on 24th August 2008, raising at total of £1,572.00 for the BBS.

This is the third year that the “Dragons” have supported us and thanks go to them for their generosity. She will really benefit from this, being able to exercise and socialise with her friends.

The photo shows Victoria Siegler receiving the cheque on behalf of the Society with the 2008 High Gun winner Will Steyn. With the money raised we have ordered a specialised tricycle for an eleven year old girl. She will really benefit from this, being able to exercise and socialise with her friends.