I wanted to drop you all a quick note before I head off to spend the winter with my cousins in Florida,to say .......
A BIG THANK-YOU !!!
for all the help in raising £1700 for Leukaemia and Lymphoma Research, Andy and Bethany have now stopped shaking :o)
I WILL be back early next year , I have an idea that ALL of you can become involved with to help us raise lots of money - and you will love it !!
Thank-you again,
Worthing Crocman X
Well,after a nervous morning,Worthing Crocman (aka Andy Headworth) and Bethany,our 16 yr old daughter have finally bungeed off the Verzasca Dam ( 007 Goldeneye dam) and here are two photos to proove it ( more to follow on return to the UK)
Sorry,technical hitch on the video front - will try again later tonight .......
Three weeks tomorrow my husband of 21 years Andy Headworth and our 16 year old daughter Bethany, will be throwing themselves of a very,very high dam in Switzerland !! Why ? I hear you ask ...... Well,in December 2007 we lost Andys brother,David, and Uncle to Bethany and her older sister Kelly, to the horrible illness Leukaemia .
He was only diagnosed in the April of that year,just before his 40th birthday. He had got engaged to Marlynne,the love of his life,and they were expecting their first baby in the August (Dara was born on August 10th-he will be three this year and David got to spend four months with him)The year after David's death,Kelly did the Leukaemia Research Bikeathon in London,last year Andy dressed as a giant crocodile and jumped off Worthing Pier in the Worthing Birdman Competition
So this year ,to go one better Andy (hopefully wearing the Crocman suit,but not the head,for safety reasons) and Bethany are going to do the Goldeneye bungee jump at the Verzsace Dam in Switzerland ! Now,I don't know about you,but I reckon that deserves a sponsor or two !!
So PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE sponsor them at these just giving pages :-
and
........ and help stop other families going through what we went through.
Punk Rock HR is one of the top HR blogs in the USA, written by mine and Andy's good friend Laurie Ruettimann. We had the pleasure of meeting her when she attended TRU London earlier this year,and although she didn't have a great experience in London ( her handbag and wallet were stolen,along with her passport),she still kept smiling !
Laurie kindly allowed Andy to write a guest post on her blog regarding his and Bethany's upcoming 'adventure'.
The post is entitled, "Can motivation really drive you over the edge?" <<<Read it here.
Thanks Laurie for the chance to spread the word further.
Only 44 days to go .......
Yes ! In 44 days my husband Andy and youngest daughter Bethany will be doing the 007 Goldeneye bungee jump at the Verzasca Dam in the Verzasca valley,Switzerland.
The other day we received this email from Howard, Andy's Dad and thought I would share it with you !!
"Dear Andrew,
I’m sure you’re anxious to check how
long it will take you to hit the ground after your free-fall off your Swiss
arch dam.
The formula you’ll remember from school physics is:
s
= ut + ½ a.t²
The initial velocity is zero, so the
time it takes to fall say 800 ft is:
Dad "
So there you go .... it won't take long at all ( & hopefully, neither of them will hit the ground !!!)
Have you got a brother or a sister or even a best friend, that you can always rely on to help, advise you or just be there for a chat?
Can you imagine what it would be like if they weren't there anymore?
Well, I have been finding that out for the last two and a half years, since my younger brother, David, died from leukaemia.
Don't let anyone tell you it is easy because it isn't. Yes, time goes on and the tears are less frequent, but the desire to want to talk to him actually gets stronger. I am lucky, because I got to spend a lot of time with him during his final few months of life. We talked about his impending death and the way that it would happen, and yes it was damn hard to do. But I think, that was for David's benefit - he just wanted to cover everything off, tick every box and ensure every detail was right.
You see, he didn't want to bother anyone else with his death! He was just thinking of everyone else during those last few months, and how he could make it easier for them, when he had gone. Bloody typical of my Brother!
Even to the end he kept his sense of humour – sharing some sports jokes the morning he passed away. I was lucky to share some of his final moments with him, and see that even at that stage of his life, racked with the disease, he was still the brother I knew. Then in an instant, he was gone.
David, like me, loved his sport. He took sports knowledge to a whole new level, by learning everything he could about the sports he loved so much - football, rugby and golf. He memorised every winner, cup final, Lions squad, Championship golf course, past major Winners........... in fact pretty much everything to do with those sports!! This of course made arguing with him about those subjects very difficult, because he knew all the historical answers - but it was fun trying.
I guess this is one of the things I miss the most.
Every week there is a major sporting event somewhere in the world, that we would have 'chewed the fat over', debated and picked our respective winning choices. Every single event makes me want to just pick up the phone to him and say, 'so what do you think then?' There are still times when I go to ring him or text him – even now, several years later.
Now I can certainly have a rant, but my brother was several notches better than me at that!! Wow, could he go off on one - usually at the expense of Ferguson (Man Utd), Wenger (Arsenal) and Rob Andrew (England Rugby) and it was so funny just to listen to such a reasoned rant - they were never random!
He put his money where his mouth was one day - he even submitted a formal application for the (at the time) vacant England Football Manager job :) Unsurprisingly he didn't get an interview!
On days like today - after a poor England performance last night - I just want to be able to talk to him, ask his opinion or just facilitate one of his five minute rants (Carrick was awful after all!)
But I can't. All I can do is talk to his photograph in my office.
We would have been in our element now, with the Football World Cup starting soon, and the British Open Golf around the corner.
Leukaemia cruelly took David away from me and my family, and so when he passed away, I promised myself that every year I would try and do what little I can to help the Leukaemia Research charity raise money. I want to help them find cures for the different types of blood cancers. I want others to have that brother, sister or best friend there for them, in the way I wish David was here right now.
That is why in 7 weeks time I am going something completely mental, and jumping 750 feet off the Verzasca Dam in Switzerland, and that is why I want you to help me raise as much money as I can in the process.
Please, go to Just-Giving today and make a donation - I need all the help I can!!
Our eldest daughter Kelly has a phobia of frogs,which is known as Ranidaphobia .... but how would she cope if she came across the Crocfrog or the Frogcroc ??
The Frogcroc/Crocfrog is indigenous to the low water tides around Worthing Pier,but are very shy creatures,so be careful where you tread because they are known to hide behind the groins on the beach and will attack if surprised - A "snappy" little creature !!
One way to keep the Crocfrog/Frogcroc away from British beaches is to sponsor The Worthing Crocman on his Just-Giving page - once we've raised enough money,he'll go down to Worthing beach and EAT them all !!!
