Dave Morris rows the London Marathon for BCS

On April 26^th at 10:00am, when the London Marathon starts, our friend and Birmingham Christmas Shelter donor Dave Morris will start rowing on a Concept2 indoor rowing machine at the Virgin Active gym in Solihull. He is aiming to complete the full 26 mile distance (or 42195 meters for the Europeans among us) in under 3 and a half hours.

He has been training for over 20 weeks and has covered over 800,000 meters in training including several half marathons and one row of 20 miles. He is carrying an injured arm ("my own" says Dave) which will need surgery 10 days after the event!

Funds raised will be split as follows; 50% BCS, 25% Welsh Air Ambulance, 25% Cancer Research.

All pledges of donations should be emailed to Dave at Morris301@btinternet.com

Crisis planning £2.5m centre for Birmingham homeless

Mike, Jamie and Ali attended a reception hosted by Crisis and SIFA fireside on 12 March at the Rep. The two organisations were flagging the fact that Crisis is planning a £2.5m centre for Birmingham's homeless and this is due to open in 18 months.

As far as we are aware there is no plan to open a Christmas Shelter and so our work will continue. However, we do plan to monitor this situation and to work more closely with partner organisations in Birmingham. At the very least we hope that we can engage our guests with more skills and outreach-related developments, as appropriate.

Birmingham Christmas Shelter on Twitter

It's nice to see Birmingham Christmas Shelter now on Twitter. Follow us at BrumXmasShelter. We'll use this to publicise our plans and the shelter during 2009.