Congratulations Dames for your successful 20 mile challenge! You can still donate at the link to Charity Choice below.

Thanks!

[hr]


Blitz Dames Sponsored Skate for Birmingham PHAB - May 11th 2008 - Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham

Birmingham PHAB Camps is a small, totally voluntary, organisation whose aim is to encourage the integration of disabled and able-bodied children and young people. We arrange holidays for groups of twenty or so people, in various age groups, during July and August. Half of the participants have disabilities and half are able-bodied. We also arrange holidays for groups of children who have severe multiple disabilities. Volunteer helpers staff the holidays. B-PHAB Website: http://www.bhamphabcamps.org.uk/

The Blitz Dames will be skating 20 miles around Cannon Hill Park, Edgebaston Birmingham for B-PHAB on 11th May 2008. If you'd like to sponsor us then please do by sending your sponsored amount directly to Birmingham PHAB Camps on their Charity Choice Donation site: https://www.charitychoice.co.uk/donation.asp?ref=155726

Please give generously.

Thank you!

I have emailed the contact at PHAB twice and had no response. Guess we can make up our own sponsorship forms? I know people who won't give via t'internet but might be susceptible to a plain old fashioned form....

Yeah they must be very busy there! We need to make up our own forms --- can you do that Roisin and email around to the Dames? x

i got a form through!!! Will mail it out to the addresses I have got, though if I don't have yours... well, you won't get one will you?!! Let me know your address....

Kiki

xxx

cheers KK (actually I'm going to stop using that abbreviation since it really belongs to Kevin Keegan) I finally got an email back today also, I will print off a few forms at work and bring on Saturday in case anyone's not got access to a printer.
xRR

Dames - big congratulations to everyone who came out today! I had a wonderful time, even though I found outdoors skating to be totally terrifying!

I have some photos over on my myspazz account...

Indeed, very well done every one!
- Justine and Skatrix who braved the bumps and slopes to outdoor skate for the very first time
-Promise - who skated farther than she ever has before at an admirable 10 miles
-Kiki for taking time away from a very special visitor to battle on for an entire 20 miles and raising the most sponsor money
-Attack, also doing the full 20, and egging us on to get certificates in our derby names
-Elle for doing 20 miles and barely breaking a sweat
-Roisin for work on organising this and keeping a cheerful attitude throughout her 20 miles
-Bee, Sin, Lorna, and Gun Bunny for coming out to cheer on their team mates!
-Myself - for performing my first act of psychokinesis in front of the league...causing a glass to shatter for emphasis when stressing to Attack her need to drink a litre of slushy alcohol for all those of us left behind when she goes to Rollercon. If only I could use my mind to push that opposing jammer off the track... :wink:

I am very proud of our league and we raised nearly £500 total for PHAB, excellent work!

xo
Fury

Well done all the Dames who participated and £500 worth of fundraising! Wow! Fantastic!

Photos to come!

Bee x

Slideshow of the Sponsored Skate!



The Dames are ready to Roll!


KiKi showing off her certificate after skating her 20 miles!

Wow, we sure look like we mean business, don't we!

I can't find my certificate.... boo hoo

Kiki
xx

Roisin Roulette's Blog:

Sunny Cannon Hill Park on a Sunday in May and the Blitzdames were on a mission to skate over 100 miles and raise bags of cash for a Birmingham charity (PHAB Camps organise holidays that disabled and able-bodied children attend together).

For anyone not familiar with Cannon Hill Park, it is a lovely and very popular park in Edgbaston with lakes, grassy slopes, cafes, children's play areas, cycle lanes and a glasshouse. Squirrels and pigeons, swans geese and ducks, families playing cricket and football and dogs chasing sticks. Lovely…. However – it is large, it isn't flat, and the paths aren't smooth.

We soon discovered that outdoor skating is a bit like indoor skating - only harder. The surface is unreliable, you have to push harder to get anywhere, falling is scary and there are hazards you never find in a sports hall (like tree branches and melting ice creams and wet dogs and kite strings and kids on trikes…)

The good people of South Birmginham on their Sunday stroll were treated to the sight of a bunch of Blitzdames dodging speeding swerving and very occasionally diving onto the grass to avoid oncoming traffic on the mile-long perimeter track. As the day wore on and the sun rose higher, we combined skating and sunbathing and eating ice creams - Kiki Kasplat Promise Payback, Justine Credible, Elle Fire, Helen Fury, The Skatrix, Roisin Roulette, Violet Attack, Lornatik, Bee Sting, Gun Bunny and Saintly Sin were there, with family and friends handing out cool drinks and rubbing the odd aching calf muscle.

And it was hot! Sun lotion was washed off by free flowing sweat as we found a rhythm and settled in for the long haul. The middle third of the course was uphill and rutted and by my third lap I was feeling the strain and doubting my chances of managing 17 more; but the smooth downhill stretch between the greenhouse and the boating lake was so beautiful, marred only by the 1-in-2 chance of having to pull off an emergency stop at the narrow bridge, and the PHAB members so encouraging, that with many water stops and snack stops we just kept on going. Not all the Dames were skating all day; we had walkers too, and moral support from late arrivals and those without outdoor wheels.

We learned that it takes about 3 hours of skating time to cover 20 miles Then add on time for rests and chatting to passers by and other walkers, runners, cyclists and wheelchair athletes, ice creams and toilet stops….T-stops are difficult outdoors and zigzagging down steep bits does slow you down.

It was hard and there were blisters and bumps. But we covered the miles, had a blast and raised a good sum for an excellent cause. Could be an annual event…..