Folkheart   Raising Money for the British Heart Foundation "Philip raises over £912. so far"

Glenfarg Folk Club secretary Philip Ponton recently completed the West Highland Way to raise money for the British Heart Foundation via Folkheart. What is Folkheart you may ask? Well here is an extract from their website which explains all.
“Folkheart is an idea that is being put into action.  The idea is to raise awareness about heart disease and raise a few pounds (we have set a target of £100,000) for the British Heart foundation.

Why? – A few members of Stonehaven Folk Club and Stonehaven Folk Festival have recently had some trouble with their hearts – a couple of heart attacks and a bypass operation.  Most worrying we did not know that there was a problem in the first place.

The Folkheart West Highland Way Walk. Because personal fitness is so crucial in recovering from, and preventing heart problems we felt that we could combine this with a wee fitness campaign.  Walking is one of the best forms of exercise so we are going to walk the West Highland Way in May 2009.  And we want as many folkies to be involved as possible.  Whether that’s through walking and fundraising, or supporting us in any other way we want the folk music community to join in and make this a national effort.  (That’s why it’s the British Heart Foundation we want to support.)

The big idea is to walk the West Highland Way over six days and to have a bit of a Ceilidh every night along the way.  We will finish up in Fort William and it would be great to have a big fundraising concert there on the Saturday Night at the end of the walk”

The 22 walkers set off from Milngavie on Saturday 22nd May, and 95 miles and seven days later arrived in Fort William. Yes, some if not most were footsore and carrying battle scars on various bits, but with boundless enthusiasm and gritty determination everybody made it! Considering many of the walkers had not attempted anything like this before, they all deserve many congratulations for a job well done, and for raising funds over many months for a very worthy cause.
The charity concert at the Nevis Centre was hosted by Martin Kasprowicz. It was his idea, following some health issues, to put the whole thing together. Without him it would not have happened, so well done to Martin. The concert was a great climax to the week, and featured Phil Cunningham and friends, Eilidh Grant, Give Way, and Broken Records,. Finally Hoogie got everybody on the floor for some Ceilidh dancing!

If you would like to add sponsorship towards Philip’s efforts you can visit http://www.justgiving.com/philipponton You will get good value for money as he also climbed Ben Nevis the day after completing the walk!
More details about Folkheart can be found at http://folkheart.co.uk/ and if you would like to know more about the British Heart Foundation you can visit http://www.bhf.org.uk/