From my very first trip to Thomley with George nearly 9 years ago I knew it was going to be a special place in our lives. There is just nowhere else in the world we can go where we are made to feel so welcome and so accepted and where everything is designed specifically to fit whatever additional needs we happen to turn up with.
Trying to express in words quite how much of a lifeline Thomley is to my family is virtually impossible, but when I decided I wanted to do something to mark my 40th birthday, raising money for Thomley was literally the only thing that came to mind!
If you are reading this as a visitor to our event, welcome! We hope you enjoy the atmosphere and the live music. Please spend some time by the track cheering our walkers on and encouraging them through their 24 hour marathon. Please also support our stallholders and consider making a donation in one of the buckets you will find on the main gate or in our admin tent on the field.
If you are one of our walkers this weekend, thank you for meeting this incredible challenge. We hope you enjoy yourselves and get a sense of the grit and determination shown by so many of the children and adults who use this centre on a weekly basis. Thank you for all your hard work in the run up to the event securing sponsorship and raising such a fabulous amount for Thomley.
It has been quite a journey over the past 14 months of planning to reach Thomley 24 this weekend. A journey that started with me approaching my main supporters; my best friend (the lady who literally gives me the strength to keep going some days) Becky Adams and some of the key staff at Thomley to see what their reaction would be to a 24 hour sponsored relay walk around the field! When no-one waivered in their enthusiasm for the idea, we all got our heads together to see what we could achieve. The results have blown me away over the past few months. We are so very grateful to an enormous range of people who have donated time, energy and expertise to make it all happen. I have also been moved to see how many of the helpers and walkers are people who are motivated, just as I am, by my fantastic children, whose infectious love for life will be powering some of the footsteps over the next 24 hours.
There is a list of thank you’s on the back of this programme because to mention them individually here would take the whole page, but suffice to say we literally couldn’t have put an event of this scale on without you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for helping to make this little birthday wish of mine come true. Thank you especially to Richard and Keith for allowing Becky and I to do this straight after we had promised you we were going to take a break from organising things and last, but by no means least, to Harriet and Becky, thank you for your unwaivering support, your encouragement has meant so much.

Every step taken on the track this weekend will help more families enjoy all that this incredible place has to offer. So, whether you are a visitor, a walker, volunteer helping to make it happen, thank you!
Carole (aged 40 years and 1 day!)