This charity fundraising page is now dedicated to the memory of my father, Terence James Rhodes, who passed to the Great Priory above on Friday 22nd January 2021 in the loving presence of his family.

Dad was a very kind, generous man, a wonderful father and a great supporter of the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital. He also supported me heavily in my charity challenges on their behalf. 

If you would like to make a donation in his memory to their good work, or as a result of my charity challenges, please do so via this page.

The Order of St John is a splendid organisation, which is a modern continuation of the work of the ancient Hospitallers of St John, who founded a Hospital in Jerusalem in the Eleventh Century. In the United Kingdom we know them for providing voluntary services via the St John Ambulance, but they also provide extensive services via the St John of Jerusalem Eye Hospital Group to various people in Israel and Palestine regardless of race, creed or ability to pay.  This includes various outreach services to people who would otherwise go or remain blind or partially sighted.  In order to continue with this good work they need substantial donations, especially since the devaluation of the pound has added A MILLION POUNDS to the amount they must raise EACH YEAR to allow their services to operate. The US Government withdrawing aid has added FIVE MILLION POUNDS  PER YEAR making a total of a SIX MILLION POUND shortfall per year that we, their supporters, need to find for them EVERY SINGLE year on top of.the existing fundraising. 

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity. So it's the most efficient way to donate - saving time and cutting costs for the charity.  

I had planned to do a series of personal challenges  for charity sometime ago, but had been delayed by various factors including suffering from my own fairly serious eye problems in 2014 before having an accident, which left me with two broken arms and just when I thought all was going well...

at the end of April 2015, I was admitted to hospital with a blood clot running the length of my right leg, which had almost filled both lungs.  My lungs together with the right side of my heart were failing and my leg was agonal.  The doctors and nurses could not believe how cheerful I was even when I was informed by two of them that they had not seen a scan this bad in years.  I absorbed this information and anticipated that I probably had a fifty percent chance of leaving the hospital.  I have since been informed by my consultant that I was being wildly optimistic and that they thought my chances were considerably lower than this.  On my third night in hospital I was fading, but my then fiancee pushed for a missed dose of the lifesaving drug I had been put on and I eventually pulled through (I should add that the majority of the nurses and doctors were superb and my outpatient team at Haematology in Guys & St Thomas's are truly excellent and very caring).

I am still recovering, working on my lung strength, fitness levels, coping with permanent damage to the leg and general energy level.  In order to help motivate myself to go forward, and do some good at the same time, I am setting a series of physical and endurance challenges in aid of charity.

They are to be based on the acts of heroes of old: Thor, the Norse God of Strength and Thunder, Hercules, the Demi-God of Greek mythology, and Samson, the Jewish Hero from the Book of Judges.  Details of each challenge will follow in due course (and any sensible suggestions for challenges will be gratefully received).

The first step of this was a soft start where I invited people to vote with their money as to whether I kept my then longer hair and big beard or let the barber go bananas.  The donors had to pick Samson or Delilah...Delilah won!  Check the old photographs on this site to see the difference.

I then trained to get my fitness and general energy levels up, including fat-burning, cardio, muscular training with increasing running challenges up to and including the grueling Great Scottish Run in severely drich conditions in late 2017.

Having completed my training challenges I then moved on to the Formal Challenges roughly around the theme of the Twelve Labours of Hercules (or Heracles), which are generally grouped together as (my initial ideas are next to them):

First Labour: (Slaying) the Nemean Lion - Strength Challenge via the Hundred Press-Up Challenge.  Successfully completed.

I therefore now consider it to be the equivalent of Samson slaying the ordinary lion and am now working on TWO HUNDRED PRESS-UPS in one set to count as slaying the much nastier impervious Nemean Lion.

Second Labour:  (Slaying) the Lernaean Hydra - Four Elements Challenge:

Fire: Firewalk - completed June 2019;

Air: Parachute Jump (or nearest equivalent since I am finding it difficult to find a place that has a rig, which will cope with my dimensions) - completed November 2020!!!

Water: Swimming Challenge - to swim Windermere (postponed by Coronavirus);

Earth: Rocksport Day - completed August 2019.

Third Labour: (Catching) the Erymathean Boar - all the Running/Distance Challenges of 2018 including at least three Marathons in three weeks. COMPLETED!!!! 2018 Brighton, London AND Stirling Marathons - three in two weeks and a day.

Fourth Labour: (Catching) the Ceryneian Hind - between a half and full Marathon per week for at least a year & also working on my cycling to hopefully get some Iron Man Triathlons done...maybe up to Quadrathlons... (I am now training to kayak);

Fifth Labour: Cleaning the Stables of King Eurystheus - a long shift with the cleaning crew at the Eye Hospital;

Sixth Labour: the Stymphalian Birds

Seventh Labour: Taming the Cretan Bull

Eighth Labour: Capturing the Mares of Diomades

Ninth Labour: (Retrieving) the Belt of Hippolyta

Tenth Labour: (Obtaining) the Cattle of Geryon

Eleventh Labour: (Stealing) the Apples of Hesperides

Twelfth Labour: Capturing Cerberus (the three-headed Hound of Hades)

These will be followed by three Impossible Challenges echoing those of Thor issued by the Giant King, which were:

One: Drinking from the Horn connected to the Ocean - Drinking Challenge

Two: Lifting the World Serpent - Strength Challenge (I am particularly thinking of the Press-Up Challenge from the Travis Video for Turn...see https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=v3tb-m0Ez4I...)

Three: Wrestling with Time Itself - Wrestling or Time Challenge.