Over the past 12 months Tom Hamer has completed various challenges on his own and with others to raise money for the North West Air Ambulance. The work and challenges he has done has been nothing short of amazing. The achievements he has done has been recognised Nation Wide and this shows in him getting the runners up award in the SWIMTASTIC awards in recognition for his fund raising work. Bobcats is immensily proud of all the work you do Tom.

Tom Hamer with his runner up award in the SWIMTASTIC awards

As an open water swimmer I train and compete in reservoirs and lakes in places where there is often very limited road access. Realising the remoteness of some of these areas and considering who would come to the rescue if I needed help, I wanted my personal swimming challenges to benefit a very worthwhile cause, the North West Air Ambulance charity.

The North West Air Ambulance undertakes on average 7 life saving missions every single day and relies upon the generosity of people like you and me to raise over £4 million pounds a year!

To learn more about the work of the charity I visited the helicopter and crew at Barton aerodrome and learnt that not only does the charity help people in difficulty in remote locations but attends road traffic collisions, horse riding, walking and mountain biking accidents (and many other sporting incidents), people with medical emergencies such as cardiac arrests and severe breathing difficulties to name a few. Quite simply the NWAA provides an invaluable service which you never know when you might need!

In July 2011, I along with five members of the Burnley Bobcats swimming team (with whom I train) undertook the English Channel relay swim and we successfully completed the challenge in 10 hours 59 minutes 13 seconds. To view the pictures please see here..

My next challenge was on the 4 September 2011, where I swam the whole length of Coniston Water which is 5.25miles; it was the longest distance I have ever swam in one go and completed it in 2hours 15minutes! I would like to thank Paul Crone from Granada Tonight and his friend Doug who have kindly agreed to be my canoeists - without their help I would not have been able to enter this competition.

I compete in many competitions in the pool throughout the North West up to Regional level and at 13 years old I am currently the youngest member of the British Long Distance Swimming Association - my real passion is competing in open water competitions. When I am 16 years old I hope to swim the English Channel solo.

Over the last six months, my family and friends have done many things, all in the name of fundraising including; a bag pack at Tesco, street collection in Burnley town centre and a charity evening at Marl Pitts rugby club. I have also asked for your support to sponsor me to encourage me in the above challenges and as you can see, with your help, I have already managed to raise a fantastic amount of money for the North West Air Ambulance. To put the value of your support into context we have raised enough money to cover the cost of one a paramedic for a month!

If you would like to help by donating please visit my Just Giving page here..

I would like to thank the following individuals and companies who have made offline donations:

Active Space Walking Group, Ashworth Moulds, Atkinson & Morley, Backhouse Insurance, Bacup Shoe, Chris Hughes, J Walsh, Moorlands School, Simon Nutter & family, Simon Bond, Speedy Hire, St James the Less School, Trisha and Yorkshire Timber.A special thankyou to Mary Jane Killelea for her special donation.

Thankyou

Tom

p.s.
In 2012 i intend to compete in more events with the BLDSA and complete the length of Lake Windermere 10.5 miles,for NWAA.