Charity Match 2023
All monies raised from the POAS Charity match have now been received with a fantastic total of £1276.00!! What an amazing effort, thanks everyone who helped and donated, we should be very proud of this achievement.
Andy
England Disabled Match Team Fundraiser
On the 29th of August this year we will be hosting a fundraising match at our Lambourne fishery in aid of the England Disabled Match Team ,this was the brainchild of Michael Noakes who has been busy organising the event including arranging for John Weeden to fish the match. All the match proceeds after prizes have been paid out will be donated to assist the team in fishing the next world championships.
Their Team Manager John Weeden is a local angler to the POAS Angling Club and has been fundraising for the last 4 years as the team get no monetary help and have to pay out of their own pockets, after hearing about the boys scraping around to find the funds to get through the channel tunnel
we wanted to do all we could to help out.
Normally for such an event we would have a fundraising marque to run alongside the Match but due to COVID we have strict limits on numbers at our lake's so we came up with the idea for a GoFundMe page to enable you to donate in a safe way, anything you donate however small will make a difference.
we asked john about the team
John Weeden Team Manager
The team is made up with a mixture of anglers with disabilities, starting with Mark Eves, mark is a dwarf and is held together by loads of nuts and bolts , he’s the most experienced of all the lads and has been a mainstay of the squad since the first disabled world championships then we have Alan Chadbone, Alan only has the use of one arm and to watch him fish is amazing, Alan has been in the team for about 10 years, then there’s big Mark Russell, mark was in the Scots guard’s and served his country in Ireland and abroad , Mark has a terrible injury to his back and has been out of the army with his disability for a few years now and has been in the team around 8 years , then we have Roy wells who also has a terrible injury to his legs hips and back , Roy has been in the team for about 5 years , last but not least is Stephan Gent , Steff had a very bad accident at work and his arm was mangled in machinery, Steff has like mark been in the team since the start but has missed a few championships as he couldn’t afford to go , over the years we have had to pay our own way to fish the championships and it was costing between £1000 and £1200 for each member out of there own pockets , for the last 4 years I’ve been raising money along with lots of help from the fishing community and thankfully we have raised just enough each year to compete, we get no help from the Angling Trust and even have to pay our entry fee and team clothing costs , there are a few people on the outskirts of the team hoping to break through and we take one or two of them along for the experience of the championships, also we have helpers and drivers in the squad and without them we wouldn’t be able to compete , Tony Troth and Colin Wedgebrow drive the tackle over to the venues and we have to find enough money for tolls the euro tunnel, fuel and overnight stays , we have big Ricky Martinelli, Alex Clemence, Damien Curtis and the main man himself sir Dick Clegg as helpers who work harder than anybody all week, any money we can raise is so very much appreciated by the whole squad, John Weeden team manager
