Fantastic Fundraiser - Shaun Casey

After 35 years of working long hours in the corporate events, travel and tourism sector, I wanted to be able to focus on a variety of different projects and activities when I took early retirement in 2018.

In the UK, I volunteer for a number of charities including Lewis-Manning Hospice Care. It has been amazing to see how the skills and expertise I’ve built up over the years in the corporate world have been invaluable to the third sector, in helping them support their fundraising efforts.

I know some people dread the thought of retiring, worrying about how they will feel and what they will do. There is no better way, however, to overcome these concerns than to work with an amazing group of people doing incredible work and actually being able to personally make a difference. These charities really need volunteers to commit time and energy to help them.

This winter I am spending time in Spain - enjoying the relaxed lifestyle, the great food and of course the sunshine! I wanted to stay active and in order to motivate me to keep up a relatively tough exercise regime, I decided to commit to swim 100km for Lewis-Manning Hospice Care. Whilst I’m a keen swimmer, it soon dawned on me that I was committing to swim the equivalent of the English Channel three times, or 80 lengths in my local training pool every working day for 10 weeks.

Not only has this small campaign generated over £500 from my network of contacts, it has raised awareness of the charity through my regular social media postings and has kept me fit and active, by giving me a goal to focus on and a commitment to fulfil. I’ve loved every minute of it!