28th – 30th May 2012 at the Manchester Central Convention Complex

CRY was delighted to be chosen as the charity to fundraise at the 2012 British Cardiovascular Society Annual Conference. The focus of our fundraising efforts was a “Cyclathon” that ran throughout the course of the 3-day conference. As well as raising funds and awareness for CRY, the Cyclathon also offered people the chance to win some great prizes.

The bike for the Cyclathon was a Wattbike (http://wattbike.com/uk/) which is endorsed by British Cycling. We would like to thank Cranlea (http://www.cranlea.co.uk/) for donating this to CRY and the BCS for the 3 days.

Our thanks to everyone who supported and took part in the CRY Cyclathon; and special thanks to Olympic Gold Medallist Rebecca Romero (winner of the Women’s Individual Pursuit in Beijing 2008) who visited the CRY Cyclathon after taking part in another cycling demonstration at the conference and before going on to complete her leg in the Olympic Torch Relay!

There were three ways in which people were able to support or take part in the Cyclathon:

• A competition to see who could cycle the furthest in 5 minutes, with the top 20 cyclists at the end of the conference placed into a draw to win an iPod Touch. Regardless of possible prizes, this aspect of the Cyclathon was extremely competitive!
• Everyone who took a turn at riding the bike and raised over £100 (either by a donation or fundraising) was entered into a separate prize draw to win an iPad 2.
• For those who didn’t feel like cycling or were unable to get to the event, a Cyclathon sweepstake was run. People donated to CRY in order to guess the total combined distance that would be ridden by all those who took a turn on the bike – the person with the closest guess winning 2 tickets to the Men’s Olympic Football Bronze Medal Match and hotel accommodation (kindly donated by Matthew Beetles Ltd).

Our thanks to everyone who supported and took part in this event.  It is still possible to donate to support the Cyclathon!

Prize Winners

The winners of the Cyclathon prizes were as follows:

• Olympic tickets – Sebastian Alexander.
• Sebastian’s guess of 145,000 metres for the total distance covered was the closest to the actual total of 143,714 metres
• iPod Touch – Peter Wilkinson
• iPad 2 – Dr Abbas Zaidi

All money raised during the conference will be going to CRY’s myheart network, which offers help, support and information to young people who are coping with a diagnosis of a heart condition.

There are regular myheart meetings for young people aged between 14 and 35 and at these meetings our members can meet other young people with similar conditions and talk about their experiences in a supportive environment during a group counselling session with an experienced counsellor.

There is also the opportunity to talk to a specialist consultant cardiologist and to ask any questions in an informal setting.

The myheart network produces a quarterly newsletter which is written for, and by, young people who have a heart condition. This newsletter contains the stories of peoples experiences of being diagnosed and how they have coped since.