Could you be a sponsor?

The Ride needs a lot of sponsors and supporters! I would like to thank those I have and encourage more to contact me about how they might help. The Ride has sponsorship packages for different levels of support and involvement. Please This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Thankyou to all who are helping!

From my first ideas about the Ride in 2006 and 2007, other riders have encouraged me with their enthusiasm for the project and with sound advice. Particular thanks are due to the members of:

• The Forest of Dean Horse Riders and Carriage Drivers Association
• The Mid Cotswold Tracks and Trails Group
• The Trails Trust

The Ride’s first offer of sponsorship was by the Little Soap Company which produces fantastic soap including a Travellers Bar for all one’s soapy needs – ideal for minimum luggage. Emma, has promised to supply my soap through months of preparation for the Ride, through the summer when a bath or shower at the end of a day's riding will be bliss and through the autumn to the finish.

Farncombe Estate near Broadway, Worcestershire, runs leisure courses and study breaks in the Cotswolds. It is where I worked from 1983 to 2011. Farncombe is helping with information leaflets and telling its thousands of customers about the Ride. The Estate will be the stunningly beautiful start and finish point for the Ride.

Vale Press in Willersey, a village close to Farncombe, has given the Ride a very keen price for printing leaflets.

WaltonPR has offered support using their media databases, contacts and PR knowledge and skills. Now based in Bourton-on-the-Water, Gloucestershire, the company works to client requirements and budgets to deliver effective PR. Clients range from ice cream producers to beef farmers via a dental practice, an enforcement company and a mobile phone application developer. This PR support is brilliant given how much media exposure is going to matter for the Ride.

LMNO.co.uk Ltd is dedicated to providing SMEs and Non-Profits with solutions for all their IT needs: Website design, development and hosting. Ride Round England Ltd is massively grateful for the work done to create and to continue to develop and support the Ride website.

Simple System Limited is a horse feed company dedicated to providing the very best forage feed diet for horses. Simple System will be providing Strider with a consistent feed matched to his needs at the 120 or so locations where he and William will stay on the journey.

South Essex Insurance Brokers Ltd (SEIB) have been providing specialist insurance solutions since 1963. While SEIB offers a wide range of insurance products it is recognised as a leading equine insurer. SEIB is providing the insurance for Strider.

The British Horse Society has helped me by putting my route up on the Emagin website which is very widely used by the equestrian world when looking for something on a map. AND the BHS has sent information about the ride out to people who may be able to comment on the route suggesting improvements, and maybe offer accommodation or advise where I might find some. These are two very major bits of the Ride preparation.

The BHS has also donated a hi-viz tabard which is excellent as I never go out without one.

We need a banner to put up at places we stop and at events. The printing needs to be as tough as possible and the people I was recommended are MacroArt.They were established in 1991, and are a specialist digital print company which was the first UK company to invest in 5m wide print technology. Since inception they have enjoyed continued growth every year and are now established as one of the largest and most respected huge format print centres in Europe. Its not huge printing for the Ride but they have given the banner for FREE. Thankyou.

Thankyou to The Cheltenham Ladies' College for some real help with my getting fitter. The College has given me free membership of the swimming pool and the fitness centre from June 2012 until the start in May 2013. The pool is a really lovely 25m pool which suits me very well for a pattern of two lengths crawl, one backstroke and one breaststroke repeated and repeated. The Fitness Centre is excellently equipped and the staff will advise me on a good programme for building core strength.

Listen out for me gasping for breath! And watch out to see if I try to ride down there and tie Strider up outside .............. maybe, not!?

3 December ............ coming out soon a video with moving maps. Those few seconds took 4 hours work by Dale and myself using the CLC Sports Hall. Thankyou to CLC for letting us take it over for an afternoon.

Flies Repelled. Strider will not have a flysheet for the ride; we cant carry more than one rug. And we can only carry a small amount of fly repellent at a time. NAF's Deet Power worked really well last sumer and now NAF have given us a can of Deet Power and some of the 200ml bottles which are neat, light and small and I can pack into a saddlebag.

   Thankyou NAF, thats great!