Many thanks to Colin for sharing this news. In his own words. Ed
As part of the Isle of Wight Walking Festival in May, the Cross Wight Sticks walk takes place from Saturday 5th to Monday 7th May.
Following the recent fantastic breakthrough news regarding scientists at UCL restoring vision to blind mice using stem cells, there is still a large amount of funds to be raised before the day when humans can be cured of Retinitis Pigmentosa.
The Isle of Wight group of RP Fighting Blindness has raised large amounts of money towards this research and the forthcoming challenge will be part of a sustained fundraising effort towards our goal.
Three walks
On Saturday 5th May walkers will meet at 9.30 at the RedJet terminal in West Cowes and walk to Ventnor via the cycle track and Stenbury trail. A bus will be provided to take walkers back to the starting point to retrieve cars/pick up transport links.
On Sunday, we will meet at 9.30am at Carisbrooke Castle car park and be bussed to Alum Bay, where walkers will walk from Alum Bay back to their cars at Carisbrooke.
On Monday 7th May, we will meet at the Propeller Inn, Bembridge car park at 9.30 and will be bussed to Carisbrooke car park, from where we will walk back to the Propeller Inn. Afternoon tea will be provided for the participants and will be on sale for others, thanks to Helen and David for their assistance with this.
Book your place
This is a sponsored walk and people are required to book places by contacting David Ewens on [email protected] 01983 867930.
However, people can register with David and pay a suggested minimum of £10 per day to cover transport costs and charitable donation. Thanks to Wightlink and Southern Vectis costs have been kept to a minimum.
As the recent impressive research news has indicated, by donating to RP Fighting Blindness you are making a significant difference. In 36 years the charity has been funding research, firstly to find out what caused RP, then to find the genes responsible, which is still ongoing and currently stands at 80-100 genes, to gene therapy trials and the possibility of stem cell trials within the next five years.
Donate if you can
If you wish to donate to the team the address is www.justgiving.com/crosswightstickswalk.
Last year the group of walkers raised £14,000 for our first walk around the Island, this year we hope to encourage as many people as possible to join us to help make RP a thing of the past.
