#TeamHonkRelay

This time last year I was knee deep in #SecretThing.  My immediate family knew that I was off to Ghana with Comic Relief with Annie and Penny, but nobody else.  The suspense was killing me and as Sport Relief and the Great British Bake Off aired I got incredibly emotional.   We watched as Lorraine Pascal went to the Virtuous Women’s Bakery knowing that a fortnight we would be there too.  But we couldn’t say anything on Twitter because it was still all hush hush.

When we got back from Ghana we were more determined than ever to get fund raising, after all that is how Team Honk came about and how we got involved with Comic Relief in the first place.    In six short weeks and with virtually no planning bloggers came together and did all sort of mad crazy stuff and we raised close to £10,000.

So we knew it could be done.    And almost as soon as that finished we started thinking about Sport Relief this year.   We were invited to Comic Relief’s offices to have a  bit of a debrief about the 25 years of Red Nose Day and to hear about their plans for Sport Relief 2014.   We confirmed that Team Honk was totally on board with supporting their official games in any and every way possible.   Team Honk is about more than that though.   Team Honk is about madness.  Craziness.  Bonkers “We can’t do that can we?”.

And that ladies and gentlemen is how the Land’s End to John O Groats blogger relay started.  Months of planning, routes, maps, logistics, Google+ hangouts (I hate Google+ hangouts), blogging, setting up Facebook Groups and encouraging people to join, serious cases of “this is never going to work” all came together.  Slowly over Christmas we saw it all coming together.  Groups working out how they would cover their miles.   Who they had to get the baton from, who they had to pass it to.

Yesterday morning it all kicked off at Land’s End, in odd shoes and the support on line was mind blowing.  I struggled to keep up with all the Tweets / Facebook notifications / instagram updates.   It was truly awesome.

By the end of the day there was £1000 banked on the giving page.   £1000 of our £20,000 target in just a day.   The aim was for each group to raise £500 and we need £286  a day to reach that target.  And in one day the blogging community, families, friends, total strangers had done something amazing.

I can’t thank you enough and apologise now for the blog posts that will highlight this epic adventure over the next six weeks as we cover the 3000 miles.    My turn will come on February 6th, but until then I am supporting virtually, and would love if you could too.

And if you want to get involved in the official Sport Relief Games here is a little bit from them:

The first ever Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Games take place from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd March 2014. The public can join the fun and games by running, swimming or cycling their way to raising cash at over a thousand venues around the country, including the landmark events at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

As one of the biggest fundraising events, Sport Relief brings the entire nation together to get active raise cash and change lives. The money raised by the public is spent by Comic Relief to help transform the lives of some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people both at home in the UK and across the world.

Of course I would also love you to donate, which you can do here:  The Fleet to Reading leg of the #teamhonkrelay

And to keep up to date with all things Honk related and to read other blogs that have been written, do keep an eye on Team Honk