Welcome back to Mission Control for the latest update on my fundraising challenge.

It’s been another wheely good week for donations – I’m not sure if I can have a “Wheely” good week on a Watt bike as it doesn’t have wheels!!

Oh well, the important thing is my thanks go to all those who have donated since the last update.

Thank you to;

John and Joanne Timperley,
Peter Clegg,
Ian Sumner,
The Coffee Club,
Derek Haywood,
Anonymous,
Ian Butterworth,
Kevin Rawcliffe,
Paul Sellers,
Nigel Johnson,
Paul Baumeister,
Darren Fletcher,
Charlotte, Matt, Sam and Matilda

Your donations have been very generous and have been gratefully received. Please keep the donations coming, without your support this challenge will grind to a halt – literally!!

Sue and I did something different last week and hosted a cooked breakfast for six hungry guys who donated £90 to the challenge in return – thanks chaps and to Sue and Christine for their culinary expertise. It was a novel way to fundraise for the challenge and very fulfilling! (Please excuse the pun)

I am often asked about our Festival Fundraising and how you can help us smash our £2.4M target and that’s a good question so let me answer it.

I guess donations can be made in any way and at any time but the most convenient way for most is by making a regular donation. Did you know if we all did that we would smash it. Now I know making regular donations doesn’t work for everyone for example those who are self-employed and for those people perhaps ad hoc donations work better at a time when cash flow permits. I am also acutely aware of how some brethren fall upon difficult times and need our help. Did you know we currently have 450 beneficiaries across our Province receiving support I for one am pleased we can do that – most of the support is financed through the MCF in other words through money donated during festivals.

When I first joined Freemasonry I often wondered how the comparatively small donations I made in a lodge meeting were miraculously turned into the millions of pounds we donate to good causes, well, a big part of the answer is through money raised during festivals.

If you have any questions, please let me know, and I will do my best to answer them.

I’m in Tenerife this week so I can’t spend time pushing the pedals around. Still, there won’t be any overeating or excessive drinking (honest) as I need to get into shape to keep pedalling, although just how much pedalling I do is dependent on donations and is in your hands.