Message on behalf of John Simpson

Hi fellow squashers,

As some of you may know our daughter Marcia took part in the Skate4Air Daylight Challenge on the frozen Runn Lake in Sweden early last year – Skate4Air is an organization that raises money to help with the development of new medicines for the treatment of Cystic Fibrosis. People with this disease are extremely vulnerable to bacteria causing organs such as the lungs and pancreas to deteriorate.

Between sunrise and sunset ( not that we actually saw any sun all day long! ) she skated, in just over 9 hours, an amazing 163.1 kilometers and raised in excess of 13,000 euros. She has CF herself and the disease often leads to death at a young age, as we are only too well aware of with the loss of our dear Natalia almost 3 years ago. As a result of this fund raising there are exciting developments based on new medication which treats the genetic defect of CF instead of the symptoms.

After a lot of soul searching she's decided to do it again. It's on Saturday February 9th. and obviously Ruth and I are going as well but, in my case, I won't be there just to encourage her again - after taking skating lessons twice a week since early October I've decided that my standard, after a very frustrating first few weeks of training, is good enough to enable me also to take part. I'm obviously not going to be able to skate as far as Marcia ( although I hope she'll give me a helping push as she whizzes by me ? ?) but, barring any serious falls, I'm aiming to skate at least 50 kms, anything more than that will be a bonus.

So, will you please consider sponsoring one or both of us? All donations, large or small, will be equally welcome and you'll be helping not only Marcia but also other sufferers of this awful disease. Below are the links to our respective pages, ostensibly in English but partly in Dutch so if there any problems let me know and I'll help you.

https://www.skate4air.nl/actie/john-simpson?locale=en
https://www.skate4air.nl/actie/marcia-simpson-2?locale=en

Thanking you in advance,

John & Marcia

jasimpson@ziggo.nl tel. 0714033492 mobile 0613238727