Preparations continue...

By the end of September preparations were beginning to take shape. Most importantly we decided on our charity: The Sick Children's Trust (http://www.sickchildrenstrust.org/), particularly Acorn House, their centre at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. We chose The Trust thanks to a recommendation from Jane Pearson, and it was soon obvious to all of us how worthy the cause was. For those of you that don't know The Sick Children's Trust provides high quality 'Home from Home' accommodation for families whose children are receiving hospital treatment for serious illness. The other main appeal in supporting Acorn House and The Sick Children's Trust was that we all have a local connection to it, and through Jane's involvement we know the charity is well run and anything we raise will be used efficiently and wisely.

Aside from the charity we set ourselves a number of other goals and priorities. Ed took responsibility for organising a website, Doble and Hugh for researching kit and myself for looking at sponsorship and fund-raising. We also spent a lot of time trying to think of catchphrases for the trip, using as much alliteration as possible, though Doble felt my suggestion of "Cambridge to Casablanca: Cross-Continent Charity Cycle" was taking things too far, Ed came came up with the idea of using Casablanca the film as an idea and adapting the (allegedly) well-known quote "Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine" to something along the lines of: "of all the cylces, in all the world, it had to be this one"... The jury remained out.

GD