I’m getting ready for this year’s May50K, the single most important fundraising event that supports MS research in Australia.
Please, please, please join me, if you can, as a participant or sponsor.
Registrations are open now. Every step we take, every dollar we raise, will support life-changing MS research.
And you can have great confidence in the quality of the research that you fund. Last year, we commissioned the most significant review since the program commenced in 2004.
We did so to ensure that – after more than 20 years – our research program remained fit for purpose, strategically aligned, transparent and capable of meeting the evolving needs of people with MS.
The review panel – comprising people living with MS, leading researchers, senior neurologists and an international neuroscientist – has worked hard over the past 12 months, talking with the MS community and examining all aspects of what is an ambitious and sophisticated program.
And I am so pleased to report that the reviewers found that:
“… the MSA Research Program is a nationally significant and high-performing portfolio, delivering substantial scientific outputs, national infrastructure, consumer-relevant insights, and strong global engagement. Across domains, the program demonstrates solid alignment with the MS Australia Strategic Plan and with the needs and expectations of researchers, clinicians, people with MS, and international partners.”
The draft report is now available online, so please take time to review the recommendations and give your feedback.
But the overall message is clear – the research funded by you – our wonderful fundraisers, donors and May50K participants – is making a massive difference to the lives of people living with MS not only here in Australia, but around the world.
This great, globally significant program and the world-class researchers it supports, would not exist without you and the May50K.
If you are able, please sign on and walk, run, roll, row or move however you can, for whatever distance you can, to raise much needed funds for MS research.
I am running for Claire, my cousin with primary progressive MS, and Jo, my niece’s partner, who lives with relapsing remitting MS. These two amazing people inspire every step I take, as I push my increasingly arthritic body to run 150km in May, to be bookmarked by two half marathons, the first in Sydney and the second in Spitsbergen.
Join me, join the Australia-wide MS community, and take part in the May50K. It’s fun. It’s healthy. And it’s for a damned good cause that will bring benefit to the 37,700 people living with MS across the country and the 3m people living with MS across the world.
If you can’t participate and want someone to sponsor, click this link to sponsor me. Every dollar gratefully received will spur me on to achieve my distance and fundraising goals. I will certainly be thinking of all my sponsors as I get into those tough last few kilometres of my two half marathons.
