Hello!

I'm Gillian. 😊

Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving team page that I have set up to help save our arts and culture industry.

From here you can find the JustGiving pages for all of the charities I am raising money for. When I first thought of the idea to do this, I wanted to find a way to raise money for the whole arts sector. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a charity that covered everything, so instead of delaying the challenge, I started by raising funds for Theatres Trust.

As the situation has progressed, I have felt that it is important to also raise money for the other areas of the arts world, including freelancers, who make up at least 50% of people working in the sector. Therefore, I have decided to add more charities to my fundraising; they are the Music Venues Trust, Acting for Others and PSA Welfare and Benevolent Fund (Stagehand).

Why am I doing this?

The arts industry is in crisis; many theatres and music venues have already gone into administration because they have been unable to open, people have already been made redundant or have been unable to work, so have lost their livelihoods, their passions.

So, I want to try and raise some funds to help. It is my aim to walk 130km by the 20th September (marking 6 months on from the theatres being ordered to close) which would be 100 metres for each of the estimated 1,300 active theatres in the UK.

(http://www.theatrestrust.org.uk/discover-theatres/theatre-faqs/167-how-many-theatres-are-there-in-the-uk)

Why is this a challenge?

This will be a challenge for me because I live with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder and Fibromyalgia both of which affect my mobility, and cause me high levels of pain and fatigue. I find it difficult to walk more than 100m without tiring and mostly use a walking stick to help with my mobility. I regularly have to deal with joint dislocations, especially in my hips, and numerous other complications that can make every day life a bit trickier to deal with.

For most of the walks, I will have a little assistant with me, in the form of my daughter, baby L. She will be providing moral support with her gorgeous smile and her pram will act as my walking aid (to help me with my limited mobility; it's basically a Zimmer frame on wheels!) 😊

I will be using Strava to track my walks over the next few months (which will track on the.page raising funds for Theatres Trust) and will regularly update this page and my social media to keep people updated with how I'm doing. You can follow my progress at:

https://www.facebook.com/Walk4TheArts

https://www.instagram.com/walk4thearts/

https://twitter.com/Walk4TheArts

Thank you so much for helping me with this cause.

Gillian xxxx