Ben Brophy

Brophy’s blog!

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Ben Brophy

Welcome back to Brophy’s blog!

It has been very busy since my last blog. As you may remember I was on holiday until recently and did a bit of training whilst out in Egypt. However, after everyone was rushed out of the ocean due to shark fears alongside the shark attack earlier in the year you can imagine it was best to call that idea a day! Two days later and we had our first event in Kempston, Bedfordshire where we raised the profile of the charity and our fund raising efforts, as well as also managing to raise £500! Since then I’ve been working hard before my contract ran out (training also!!), I’ve been in London and Birmingham twice so a lot of travelling, and I’ve been busy working on a few things which will come to light soon! Things are moving along nicely.

Upcoming events wise we have the aquathlon on the 25th of September, “open swimming channel challenge” which will be hosted at Aston more details to be released shortly and a potential big fund raising event in Birmingham. So there’s plenty going on and lots of opportunities to get involved!

Training is going good, I have mixed things up a bit and doing more runs along with some gym work to balance training out. In September/ October ill have a professional training program in place and ill be stepping it up a gear! What some people may find hard to believe is I really can’t wait, the challenge and pushing myself to the limits is something that excites me!

This week’s blog post appears to be short and sweet and to summarise there’s a lot of things going on at the moment that we hopefully will be able to announce in the next brophy’s blog, including a new sponsor!  One last thing, due to popular demand the twitter account is up and running so you can keep up to date with what is going on as it happens!!

Till next time,

Brophy

Posted in "Weekly" Blogs | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
Ben Brophy

Sainsbury’s Kempston Event

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Ben Brophy

As you may of already know the last two weeks I was on holiday as was Tim Long so it came down to Andy Read to keep things ticking over nicely while I was away! I got back Friday around 12:10am so it’s been a mad rush getting ready for the bag packing event we held today at Sainsbury’s Kempston.

Firstly I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has donated Sainsbury’s for allowing us to do our event there and a special thanks goes to Andy Read, Sam Coleman and Matt Merrett who travelled down from Birmingham!! Karli Humphries and Harriet Stringer who helped me count all the money! It now comes down to the question everyone wants to know, how much did we raise so far?! Well as things stands we raised an amazing £500 pounds!!! I would again like to thank everyone who donated. On top of this I will be collecting donations from the staff at Sainsbury’s who have signed our donations form in the next day or two.  Overall we are at 5% which is a good start with a year to go. There are still plenty more bigger and if possible better events to come so why not get yourself involved!!

Thanks again,

Ben Brophy

Posted in "Weekly" Blogs, Events | 1 Comment
Andy Read

Sainsbury’s / Aquathlon

Posted on August 14, 2011 by Andy Read

So boys and girls, just a quick shout while our talismanic leader is out of the country (warm weather training he tells me).

It is now less than two weeks until our first big event….. Bag packing in Sainsbury’s Bedford. It would be great to see as many of you down there as possible, especially as Ben has treats for all those who show up. Also a BIG thank you to Sainsbury’s for supporting us with this!

In other news, Ben, myself and the energetic Mike White will be taking part in the Tudor Grange Aquathlon in Solihull on Sept 25th. This is a 200m swim and 2450m run and if this sounds tempting to you there is a link below. Let’s just hope this doesn’t clash with Fresher Fair!

http://www.entrycentral.com/index.php?raceID=101208

That’s all for now folks! If you have anything to say, get involved, on blog, on twitter, on facebook.

Posted in Events | Tagged , , | Leave a comment
Andy Read

Hello TeamBrophy followers!

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Andy Read

Hi Everyone,

You are going to be seeing more of me on here over the coming weeks so I thought it best that I introduce myself first.

For those of you who don’t know me, I had the pleasure of studying at Aston with Ben and have subsequently graduated however my work has delivered me back to Birmingham.

Before I get started I would like to make a massive shout out to British Triathlon who was on hand to give Ben a few tips on his swimming technique over the weekend at a promo event in Victoria Square, Birmingham.

So when Ben said he had a favour to ask, why did I agree to join him on this crazy, mad, inspiring, exciting, charitable adventure? Note I use the word, adventure, this hasn’t been smooth so far, and that isn’t going to change going forward but that’s what makes it fun.
Anyway, to answer the question, two reasons, firstly Ben doesn’t seemed scared which either means he is so confident he can do it, or that he is scared shitless and is just driving on, I will leave him to answer that one. Secondly is the reason why Ben picked Leukaemia and Lymphoma research as his charity of choice. I can’t imagine losing someone so close to me at such a young age, someone who in reality has come into my life more as I have got older. So if we can help prevent Leukaemia or Lymphoma from taking another life, another brother, father, mother, sister, friend or colleague, then surely it is the least we can do, and we can do this through supporting such a great cause.

Anyway, like I said you will be hearing more from me so let’s all get behind this and make a donation to get the ball rolling, and when you have done that, ask your family to donate and they have, ask your friends to donate. Remember, if you don’t ask you don’t get!

Catch you all soon

Andy Read

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
Ben Brophy

Brophy’s Weekly Blog Number 6!

Posted on July 30, 2011 by Ben Brophy

Welcome to my weekly blog!

I can’t believe how quick it’s gone, it has been a frustrating but good week or so overall. First of all we are just doing the finishing touches for a new section on the website which should be up before next week’s blog, fingers crossed.

Event wise I have been working hard on our first fundraiser in Kempston Sainsbury’s, myself and the team will be down packing bags to raise some money and raise awareness of the swim along with the charity itself. As well as this going on, there are our amazing posters now up in store with a donations page. I am in on-going/new talks with a number of potential sponsors; I believe we are getting there.

The week itself on a personal note has been very frustrating, being a university student I have been working full time to get some money for next year. I appear to be coming to the end of my summer work now and it’s been intense! Working 7 days straight, late then morning takes it out of you even more so when you’re trying to fit in training! It was a huge week of work but it goes back down to normal soon, considering I’ve been working training hasn’t been too bad but I’m looking forward to getting back down to normal. I’ve change my training schedule recently on advice from someone who is assisting me in this area until we get a programme together. It involves a mixing of gym work, swimming and running, I also manage to get a bit of Gaelic football involved by running with the ball doing little bits and bobs, It keeps things interested and was a really good fitness session.

Overall its been a very busy week working every day and training in the heat has been a challenge. Also there is Diffey’s second video blog coming out shortly! Not to be missed! More updates and news to follow shortly keep an eye on the twitter and facebook page!

Thank you for all the support so far, Brophy!

Posted in "Weekly" Blogs | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment