Tag Archives: london marathon

The Voice

Wendy Chamberlain to run London Marathon

By The Voice | Sun 12th April 2026 - 2:15 pm

It says something about Wendy Chamberlain’s capacity for hard work that in amongst being Chief Whip, an energetic constituency MP, and running the Scottish elections that she’s going to be running the London Marathon two weeks today.

Here she is talking to Radio 5 Live about it this week:

Obviously we wish Wendy all the best in her endeavour, but we should all really put our money where our mouths are too. Wendy is using her run as an opportunity to raise money for two charities very close to her heart.

Wendy has been raising the issue of PANS PANDAS ever since a constituent came to her not long after she was elected. Donate here.

PANS PANDAS UK is a charity that was established by a dedicated group of parents with children that are affected by these conditions who were determined to make a difference to how these conditions are understood by both the general public and the medical profession.

I came across the conditions during my constituency work when I was contacted by a family who were struggling to support their daughter and navigating health and education challenges. I became a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group for PANS PANDAs and led a debate in Parliament. Following the General Election in 2024 I secured a meeting for the charity with the relevant health minister.

Support for PANS PANDAS remains very patchy with families often dependent on having a supportive GP who is willing to consider the conditions as the cause of the very distressing symptoms that include OCD, tics, restrictive eating behaviours, anxiety and enuresis. The money raised from my maraton efforts will be used to support further research.

And we know from her Carer’s Leave Act how much supporting carers means to her. She is also raising money for Fife Carers’ Centre. Donate here.

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Caron Lindsay

A marathon run in memory of our Erlend

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 22nd April 2023 - 2:15 pm

Many of our readers will still be missing the wonderful Erlend Watson, who sadly died in January 2022, 8 months after a lung transplant carried out at the Royal Papworth Hospital in Cambridge. The team there were so brilliant to him.

Tomorrow, Erlend’s great friend James Wright is running the London Marathon to raise money for the Royal Papworth. On his Enthuse Donation page, he says:

In May 2021, my dear friend Erlend had a double lung transplant, as an incurable lung condition had caused his lungs to fail.

He received the most amazing care from the team at the Royal Papworth Hospital in difficult circumstances.

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NewsHound

Tim Farron set to run London Marathon for air ambulance charity

By NewsHound | Sat 1st October 2022 - 12:35 pm

Our former leader really is a glutton for punishment. Last year he ran the London Marathon, raising over £5000 for the Brathay Trust, a social enterprise supporting young people in Cumbria.

And tomorrow he plans to do it all again:

This time, he’s fundraising for the Great North Air Ambulance and has already raised more than £3000.

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Vinous Ali

Visiting the Northern Greece refugee camps with Tim Farron

By Vinous Ali | Sun 17th April 2016 - 10:55 am

Refugee camp Northern GreeceOn Monday I flew out to Greece with Tim ahead of his visit to the camps in the North on Tuesday. Hours earlier UNHCR informed us they would no longer be able to facilitate the visit of a ‘high-profile’ individual given the security concerns after the clashes the day before. I tried desperately to reassure them that it was not exactly a ‘high profile’ visit, there would be no security team, huddle of staff and no media crew following him around– something that I don’t think they really believed.

So we flew into Greece with ‘fluid’ plans let’s say.

I spent Monday night manically emailing all the contacts I had working in the field to see if we could line up briefings for Tim the next day and had a surprising response. Everyone was very keen to meet Tim to tell him what they were doing and what they needed from the UK Government. One organisation who wasn’t even currently in Idomeni, the informal camp we visited on Tuesday morning, came over especially to give Tim and an overview of what was happening on the ground day in, day out.

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Caron Lindsay

Two ways to support Austin Rathe’s Marathon Effort

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 26th April 2015 - 10:00 am

As I write, my friend and LDHQ Members and Supporters Manager Austin Rathe is heading off on a 26 mile run around London. It sounds so easy to write it like that, but it will be about 4.5 hours of real pain. As I said when I first wrote about his plan to run the marathon, we must be working him too hard if he thinks that a 26 mile run is something to do for a rest.

Let’s just remind ourselves why he’s doing it – for a very worthy cause:

Austin will be running to raise funds for Special Effect, a small charity which helps people with disabilities to enjoy playing video games. You can see some of the good work that they do in this video.

So, if you are suitably impressed by Austin’s effort, there are two things you can do to help him.

First and most importantly, sponsor him to raise money for Special Effect. He’s not far away from £1000. If everyone reading this could maybe give the price of even a coffee, that would make a big difference. I know we are all supposed to be giving all our money to the party at the moment, but we all still have enough left over for that cake to take to campaign HQ or the coffee to have afterwards. So if you could give up today’s snacking money for Austin, that would be brilliant.

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Caron Lindsay

As if Austin Rathe didn’t have enough to do…

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 22nd March 2015 - 12:45 pm

Austin RatheAustin Rathe is, as many of you will know, the Head of Member and Supporter Development at Lib Dem HQ. He has presided over an increase in membership over the last couple of years and is the architect of the incentive scheme which makes it worth local parties’ while putting lots of effort into recruiting members.

He is someone who works almost every hour imaginable and is often to be seen responding to queries raised by members not just through the usual channels but on social media, too.

He’s a very busy person and you can’t really imagine him sitting still for more than 5 seconds. I did wonder, though, when I saw that he was planning to run the London Marathon this April whether we were working him hard enough. Or, alternatively, whether we were working him too hard if he thought that running 26 miles was something he’d do for a rest.

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