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So, I'm begging for money again......

Dusty

Don't run, you'll only die tired....
May 19, 2004
7,606
2,407
348
45
Northern Ireland
Hello to all, once again I come to you on bended knee but this time I’m asking for something which is close to my own heart.

Some of you may know that I run a Taekwondo club near my home, it’s not big and fancy and doesn’t have hundreds of members. Many don’t realise however that I’m actually a globally qualified Para Taekwondo Instructor, 1 of only 8 in the UK and Ireland (http://parataekwondo.org/certified-instructors/). I have a few students with various special needs from physical conditions ranging from Spina Bifida and blindness, to kids with various forms of autism and behavioural disorders. We also teach regular kids and adults at the same time!! We are part of an association which has the only 9 clubs in the whole of Northern Ireland who teach Olympic Taekwondo and have submitted a team to the Commonwealth Games.

We are completely self-funded and by that I mean every stitch of equipment from kick pads to body armour has so far been paid for by me, including coaching courses often running into several hundred pounds apiece, which allows me to get insurance. The last one was £265 which was run by British Taekwondo, the governing body in the UK and the purpose of this was for them to assess me and make sure I was of sufficient standard to teach, after having been an instructor for the best part of two decades…….

It costs approximately £135 to kit out one person with a full set of body armour, I have never had any kind of financial assistance or grant from anyone and I only actually charge about half of the class for lessons but we’re about halfway to kitting out all of the students. Some of them have their own stuff but a lot of kids wouldn’t be there if they had to pay as they simply can’t afford it due to people losing jobs, being single mums and so on. I’m also a bit of a soft touch when it comes to people who have 3 kids as I know how expensive life gets with 3 of my own. Mostly I just get them to chuck me a fiver for the class instead of £3 per child. It’s safe to say I’ll not be retiring early.

We are badly in need of training mats which come in at around £2000 for the insurance approved equipment and to put it bluntly I can't afford it by myself, so I am riding a bicycle around a local 100 mile course named Lap the Lough to try and raise a bit of funding, I would appreciate anyone who feels like sponsoring me, a pound, a fiver, anything would be welcomed. If anyone can spare something to auction off that would also be great and I’ll be in touch with the banner advertisers soon to beg and scrounge whatever I can :D. I’d like to make it clear, I’m not a cyclist, I only bought a road bike this year to do this event although I have done a fair bit of mountain biking in the past few years it is nowhere near the distance I have to do in August. My wife who is also a Taekwondo instructor will be doing the cycle with me. We are aiming for £500 between us but anything will be a bonus and will go directly to club equipment, no admin fees. Should we by some miracle raise more than the cost of the mats then we’ll invest in as much protective equipment as we can with whatever is left over.

I know I’m not a charity and I know it’s not a patch on some of the reasons we have raised money before but even to raise enough money to pay the hall rent for a month or two would be a massive help and is genuinely making a difference to the lives of some of these kids and their parents. I’ve had parents report back from doctors and hospital specialists that Taekwondo is helping with everything from focusing autistic children’s attention to improving the balance of a 10 year old boy who has a tube draining fluid from his brain to his stomach. It also gives parents a much needed hour and a half respite each week. I know how hard some of the children can be to deal with for that 90 minutes, never mind 24/7.

I can’t guarantee I’ll be churning out Olympians but the pathway is at least laid out to give them an opportunity.

I'm undecided as to whether paypal is best for people or a go fund me type page, open to suggestions on that one.

Thank you all in advance.


Jim
 

phil-boy

UK Redskins
May 6, 2004
3,379
770
148
Essex, UK
www.uk-redskins.com
Good on you mate and well done in your works with kids with the specialist needs. Once you have decided on payment method post up and will shout you £20.00.

Dont quote me on this but I think that if you set up one of the just giving pages then you can get some extra money due to people being tax payers ! As I said dont quote me but when I have made charitable donations in the past it normally comes up as being a tax payer and my £20 is then worth £24 odd so it may be worth looking at as you then get more money.

Well done and good luck to you and your wife on the ride.
 

systemx

Peace through superior firepower
Jul 3, 2011
206
44
38
London
This Sounds like a worthy cause to me I will also happily donate to this. I would like to offer £50 towards your target of £2000, it's not much but I hope this will go some way to helping you with this.

Come on guys this is clearly well worth it and once again it's great to see that the users of this forum are doing an emmence amount of good in their respective communities.

Sir I salute you
 
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Dusty

Don't run, you'll only die tired....
May 19, 2004
7,606
2,407
348
45
Northern Ireland
That's very kind of you both, thank you so much :)

@phil-boy sadly as I'm not a registered charity I can't claim back the gift aid. Looking into it, these justgiving and gofundme places seem to take about 8% all in so I'll probably stick with what I know and do the paypal thing again.

Jim
 

systemx

Peace through superior firepower
Jul 3, 2011
206
44
38
London
You are very welcome, Just Let me know your PayPal and I'll sort it for you.
 

Mclovin101

Well-Known Member
Apr 3, 2008
4,099
367
118
Jim

Massive thumbs up to you. Having a child with Special needs i know personally how classes/groups people like you help improve our child in many ways and yes gives us parents a small break. Something so small means so much.

Please send over your Paypal and i will happy give some money :)
 

Dusty

Don't run, you'll only die tired....
May 19, 2004
7,606
2,407
348
45
Northern Ireland
Thanks everyone for the kind words. We don't see them as special needs, we just see them as kids :) There's no special treatment except where physical limitations come into play, we teach them all the same way some just take a bit more patience than others!!

annaghmoretkd@gmail.com is the paypal address, we're going to run a raffle too with a prize of custom printed hoodies and t-shirts for your team of up to 7 players.
 
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