Mike has raised more than £900,000 for various Charities involving the encouragement of sport for the disabled, or support for people with a vision impairment.
Through after dinner speaking, he has challenged perceptions of disability and got people laughing at attitudes and the things people say!
He undertook one of his most ambitious sporting challenges in 2012, by attempting to perform 10 sports, in 10 months to raise £10k for VISION 2020 UK. Together with 2 fellow Chief Executives of charities in the sight loss sector, Mike and his colleagues undertook five team sports together and then five individual sports which were on the Olympic or Paralympic Games programme.
The team sports were:
- Boccia (a ball game – mainly played by athletes with Cerebral Palsy.
- Goal Ball – a ball game played by athletes with a Vision impairment.
- Rowing – in a coxed four
- Sailing
- Tandem riding
Individual sports undertaken by Mike were:
- Running – 5k track event
- Field events – shot, discus and javelin at Metro Games
- Shooting
- Sound Tennis
- Judo
However, Mike says that was comparatively easy compared to the fund-raising challenge he undertook with two friends in 1983!
In those days there was no or little funding for the Paralympic Ski team and so Mike and his two friends, who had been selected to represent the UK in the 1984 Paralympic Winter Games in Austria, had to raise a considerable sum to cover their costs.
They all blamed each other for coming up with the idea of doing three marathons in three sports in 30 days.
As they were all skiers the first – the HolmenkolnSkii marathon in Oslo was a given, and the London Marathon in its third year was on their doorstep, but what should the third be?
Again, they all blamed each other but someone mentioned the Devizes to Westminster Canoe Marathon.
Should be easy all they had to do was to sit in a canoe and paddle!
They did not realise the event was over 125 miles and included 72 portages where they had to lift the canoe out of the water and then run with their canoe partner around the obstacle and then get back in and paddle!
Funding would come from people buying raffle tickets and guessing the time Mike would take to do all three marathons combined!
They raised over £3000 which was a lot of money in 1983!