A Night With Kevin Sinfield

Introduction

Kevin Sinfield England and Great Britain Rugby League player has been running 7 Ultra Marathon’s in 7 Days.

He completed this epic 275 mile journey on Saturday afternoon at Old Trafford, at half time at the Rugby League World Cup Final.

During the week Kevin wasn’t just running Ultra Marathon’s but was out raising more funds in the evening!

On Thursday 17^th November, after Ultra Marathon number 5, Oak By Design’s Jamie Winspear, together with Mark and Alice Pepper of Sporting Connexions, David Adams, Martin Wolstencroft and Richard Smailles arranged a fundraising evening to swell the coffers of the MND Charities that Kevin has been running for in honour of his mate and former Leeds Rhino’s team -mate, Rob Burrow.

Emily Smailles, of Marketing Adventures, arranged the video’s and all the marketing of the event.

Where Was The Event Held?

The evening was held at Manahatta York. Martin Wolstencroft, the bar’s founder, offered the venue for the evening. This enabled Kevin’s fabulous back up team of 20 or so to be provided with a marvellous meal after their epic day. Martin also cycled quite a lot of the route with Kevin and the team.

The evening continued with 120 paying guests, friends and associates of the organisers from York and Harrogate, listening to Kevin Sinfield talk about his efforts to date. He was blown away by the response he received when entering York earlier in the day and spoke about the brilliant team he had behind him supporting throughout the challenge.

Well Received Auction

Richard Smailles, from FSS Property in Harrogate, was the Auctioneer for the evening, auctioning 30 of Kevin Sinfield’s running shirts, which he had signed, for £375 each!

He then auctioned a couple of super prints of Kevin and Rob and these were bought by Clint Goodchild, the Chairman of York RLFC and Jamie Winspear.

Richard, himself, bought a signed shirt of Steve Cram’s. Steve had supported Kevin on his Day 2 ultra marathon earlier in the week.

Michael Ibbotson, of the award winning Durham Ox at Crayke, generously donated lunch for 20 people and Kevin Sinfield agreed to join the donors to talk about the fundraising. This raised an absolutely fantastic £15k! This was a joint bid including Oak By Design‘s Jamie, David Adams from Business Waste UK, and Tom Frank from Ice Cubed Property Finance.

Its All About Rob Burrow.

Kevin spoke about his relationship with Rob and how proud he was that Rob had brought MND into the public domain. Because of both their efforts, and other’s such as Doddie Weir’s, this illness is now fully out there and the public are very much aware of.

Rob Burrow and MND almost go hand in hand now, after Rob has pushed on through talking about his 3 year illness.

David Dickson, the non-exec Chairman of St. Leonard’s Hospice in York, and supporter of Kevin’s fundraising, speaking on the video (hear this above) called for both Rob and Kevin to be the BBC’s Sports Personality’s of the Year.

At the time of writing this the total raised for the 7 Ultra Marathons in 7 Days had raised a fabulous £2,000,000+.

£77,000 of this was raised at the York evening and thanks go to many very generous donors (2 donating a substantial amount each and wish to remain anonymous) who enabled this amount to be raised.

The people of York and Harrogate and the surrounding areas who have supported Kevin along the route, and who turned out in the foul weather on Thursday, have certainly helped Kevin raise this magnificent amount.

If you would like to donate please see Kevin Sinfield’s page here:

Jamie said afterwards “we are overwhelmed by the number of people who have contributed both time and money to make this evening the success that it was. The people of York and Harrogate have once again come out, in their support of Kevin Sinfield and Rob Burrows on their journey to raise funds to find a cure for MND.”