The Jo Walters Trust held their

St Andrew's Ball

at

The Edinburgh Academy

42 Henderson Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5BL

Saturday 26th November 2022, at 6 p.m

On the 26th of November, the Jo Walters Trust held a St Andrew's Ball in Edinburgh at The Edinburgh Academy, It was a superb evening of dinner, an auction, and dancing to the terrific SuperGrouse band. Just so lovely to be back 

We are delighted that the evening raised over £8,500 which will help fund more grants for outdoor education and maths in the coming years. 

Thanks in particular to:

• Established Events - Georgina donated her enormous experience and valuable time to bring off a truly memorable evening. 
• Bruce Walker for being such a superb auctioneer,
• SuperGrouse - WHAT a band.
• The Edinburgh Academy who were a dream to work with
• Finesse Marquees for the twinkle lights
• Lark Rose for the stunning (sustainable) table decorations
• Blackthorn Salt who supplied their delicious Scottish sea salt for the tables 
• Bread and Butter Marketing for sponsoring the wine

And to all the generous donors of auction lots and raffle prizes. For a copy of the brochure, please click here)

What is it?

The trustees of the Jo Walters Trust will head out for a fund-raising Yuletide yomp, every day between Boxing Day and Hogmanay. But it will be so much more worthwhile if we can persuade our friends around the world to do the same. So sign up, get outside, increase your festive footfall and rack up some mince-pie fuelled mileage! With prizes on offer and oodles of kudos available, we'd love you to do a walk, perhaps make a donation and help us reach our overall mileage target for the six days from Boxing Day to Hogmanay.

Following on from last year’s stellar efforts, we shall be striding out with The Proclaimers’ “but I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more” ringing over ben and glen (or hill and dale, for those south of the border).

And the small print: be sure to do this in a COVID safe way, adhering to whatever regulations are in place where you are.

Boxing Day to Hogmanay December 2020

Everyone loves the idea of a family Boxing Day walk, but the reality is often overtaken by turkey leftovers, the lure of the new presents and re-runs of The Snowman. In December 2020, we came together virtually to walk as many miles as we could to raise money and have a nice time for the Jo Walters Trust. We had initially hoped to walk a combined total of 500 miles or so - the distance from where Jo grew up in Aberdeenshire, to Bristol where she went to University, but in the end we managed over 1000, and raised £2,983.25 for the trust - to put this into context, it should fund our annual round of Maths grants for 2021.

The trustees are so incredibly grateful to all the walkers, mince pie eaters, ploggers, scavenger hunters - and hugely importantly - the wonderfully generous people who sponsored all the above!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

On the important point of prizes - the prize committee, after deliberated long and hard came to their final decisions as follows:

• The prize for furthest distance walked (6 jars of award winning marmalade from Kincardine Castle Kitchen): Hugh Lort-Phillips.
• Most mince pies consumed (2 x Mr Roberelli CDs of your choice) - Team Socks and Sandalls
• Best Plog-olution Plogging (some chocolate brownies again from Kincardine Kitchen): Team Bristol (Gilly Hanking-Evans).

Vicky Duke's North West 500

The Plan...

This epic adventure all stemmed from an inspiring talk by Mark Beaumont (global cyclist extraordinaire) who had just completed a top to bottom bike ride of Africa – the talk also showcased Scotland's equivalent of Route 66 around the North Coast – it looked stunning, suddenly it seemed do-able - I got carried away! So what better way to mark a major life-change than to hop on my bike and raise money for a fantastic wee charity set up for Joanna Walters who died tragically young at 28 in a bike accident in 2010. For me as I bowl along it's all about remembering Jo, who grew up with our children and how she made the very most out of life. As you will see from the JWT website they have supported manyprojects which would have been close to Jo's heart from Aberdeenshire to Madagascar and beyond.

The defined 500 mile route seemed a step too far so my trusty roadie has refined this to 450 although sadly there are just as many hills! My route kicks off at the end of May in Inverness (see map), heading west past Achnasheen and Kinlochewe to Gairloch. Then north past Ullapool, Inverkirkaig and Lochinver, Stoer and Scourie to Durness on the NW corner. Along the north coast to John o'Groats then finally down the east coast past Wick, Brora and Golspie towards Inverness - phew! The distance, the mountains, the head winds not to mention the midges will be challenging but one thing’s for sure, it will be worth it! If you feel like sponsoring me (every penny of which will support the very worthy JWT) this would keep me going far more than any of Peter's acclaimed flapjacks and I honestly won’t be making a habit of it, this is a one-off!!

The execution...

Here's a flavour of the journey with far too many unflattering photos - annoyingly you have to go to the 'i for info' tab for details:
https://goo.gl/photos/1D6eaZBF42sz2V458

The Success...

Safely home! The strong head winds made for long days in the saddle combined with plenty of steep ascents, not to mention panniers full of equipment and clothing for every eventuality - this was the North of Scotland after all! So much for dawdling along stopping here and there for a spot of culture - just getting to our B & B (in time for supper) meant a good 9-hour day on the bikes!

However what kept us going was the backdrop of spectacular mountains and fabulous views over sea and lochs, constant birdsong and delicious smell of bog myrtle and heady aroma of coconut from the gorse but above all the encouragement of both friends and the strangers we met along the road. We couldn't help noticing we were the oldest ones doing this by some margin but we did earn respect!

Really happy to say that the total raised for the Jo Walters Trust thanks to everyone's generosity and including cash, cheques and pledges, is over £3,000. It meant so much to be doing this in Jo's footsteps.

Lots of love

Vicky

Our Thanks...

Huge thanks to Vicky and Peter and all their friends and supporters for the generous sponsorship, the effort and organisation and the committment.  Well done!

Swim from Arran to Troon on Saturday, 1st October 2016 by the ArranTrooNautics. 

Participants:

Successful, dressed and ready for a party, swimmers left to right: 

Back row: Whirly Marshall, Lorna Laidlaw, Barbara Johnston, Joanna Clapton, Annie Howie, Mark Johnston

Middle row: Team Doctor: Emily Farquhar, Vanessa Lawrence, Rhona Quarm, Caoimhe Hunter-Blair, Bea Bound

Front row (kneeling): Lucy Johnston, Katherine Self, Alice Vernon

Out of shot: Jade Perry who joined to be a coach for the other team but in true star fashion, also took to the water herself. 

To see individuals' own perspectives of the swim please click on their names above to be taken to their write up.