We are delighted and proud to have been chosen by Destiny of a Child, a local Sevenoaks Charity to be one of the benificiaries from their Project 2013 - Kilimanjaro. Destiny of a Child orgnaised an extremely successful Kilimanjaro climb at the beginning of 2011 and are now building on that success to make Project 2013 even more popular and are offering places on this unique and iconic climb that has captured the imagination of the charity world and fundraisers in recent years.      

Mark Roberts and Tim Longthorne are Team Valence !!

Some of you may remember that in 2010 I ran a ‘two for one’ sponsorship offer, running in two cross-country events to raise money for the Friends of Valence. I was quite successful and managed to raise £800. Since then I have continued to run, generally cross-country events but over increasing distances. I have been lucky enough to be given a place on the London Marathon, through The Friends of Valence connections, and Tim Longthorne has also got a place. After some discussion (Tim is allowed to leave me far behind) we have decided to run as Team Valence! 

We have our dedicated Virgin Money Giving Site, or you can find us by typing Mark Roberts or Tim Longthorne into the search box on the Virgin money giving site. 

And so it begins! We have set ourselves the ambitious target of £5,000 and the site is live now so please go online and make a donation. All money raised goes directly to the Friends and you can use Gift Aid too. 

Please pass these details on to friends and family, distant relatives, passing unicyclists, milkmen and anyone else you think may be willing to sponsor us to raise money for Valence. 

We will be keeping everyone updated with details of our training – including pictures, which we will put on the website and in the newsletter. We are also holding a competition to design Team Valence! T-shirts to run in, though we have already decided not to dress up any further as the extra weight could make a considerable difference to our ability to finish!!

The Friends of Valence School is a Registered Charity whose purpose is to raise funds for, support and promote Valence School. The funds help provide for extracurricular activities, prizes and gifts for the students and capital projects for the school. We have now introduced a Text Giving facility, so our well-wishers can now support us by simply Texting 70070 to VLNC01 with their contribution.

Two members of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, David Moore-Crouch, the Information and Advocacy Officer and Ruth Martin, the Publications and Communications Manager have recently visited us to talk to some of our young people. The theme of an upcoming issue  of “Target MD” the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign’s publication is “Education” so David and Ruth came to Valence to find out more about the life of students with muscle disease in school. The MD Campaign is the leading UK charity that focuses on muscle-wasting disease.