Here are the seminars given by myself [Matt Westoby] and Alex. Also attached is the departmental newsletter piece.

“I am Louise Eddie and last year I went on a gap year with Project Trust. I spent my time at an NGO called Cotlands. Cotlands is a national organisation in South Africa providing residential and home-based care to vulnerable children. I spent my year working at a children’s home in Turffontein an area in the south of Johannesburg . . .

My role at Cotlands was to fill in where best needed. I worked in a variety of different areas from the early shift in the hospice getting babies up, bathed and dressed for the day, filling in at the nursery school if they were short-staffed or helping out in the office with fundraising. In addition I had daily roles such as helping the school going children to complete their homework each evening.

As well as completing the tasks assigned to me while in South Africa I wanted to make a difference to the lives of the children on a personal level, no matter how small that difference may be. To do this I tried to act as a ‘big sister’ and teach the children skills that I was taught as a child. One of my proudest accomplishments of my year is teaching the 25 oldest children to swim. At the beginning of the year many had never been in a pool or were terrified of water. My friend Jessica and I spent hours every Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer in the pool with this group of children and now all the children are able to swim independently. It leaves me with such a sense of accomplishment to know I have left a lifelong skill with these kids.

The one thing which shocked me most when I first arrived was the lack of academic ability amongst the eldest children. The children were being asked to complete complex sums of long division or read chapters out of adult novels for homework. I found this utterly ridiculous as they could barely count to ten or recite the alphabet. Each evening after struggling through homework Jessica and I split the oldest children into groups and went ‘back to the basics’. At the end of my first four months at Cotlands the school year came to an end. We were invited along to school graduation and were thrilled at the thought most of our kids had passed that year and would be allowed to move onto the next grade come January. Much to our delight many of our children were actually receiving awards at prize-giving ceremony. Sifiso is 9 years old and when I first arrived he could not tell an ‘a’ apart from an ‘o’, at prize-giving Sifiso won most improved in reading. Kwanele is 10 years-old and he struggled to count to 10 without muddling numbers, at prize-giving he was awarded most-improved mathematician for the year. As I sat in the audience I had tears in my eyes and knew no reward for my effort could ever mean as much to me as their smiling little faces as they were handed certificates to commend their hard work throughout the previous four months. The children had gone from hating school and despising homework exercises to having a thirst for knowledge and a determination to do well in school.

. . . This summer I am returning to South Africa to work at Cotlands for three months. This experience has changed my outlook on the world and made me determined to leave my mark. I would like to thank you with all my heart for sponsoring me. I am very grateful to have had people support the opportunity which I had. Without a doubt it was definitely the best year of my life so far and it has opened my eyes to the million possibilities which are now at my feet.”

“This is my February newsletter. I want to express my gratitude once again for the sponsorship. I’m having a fantastic time out here in Chile. I am finding teaching English highly challenging but rewarding.”

“I have attached my review of last year. I now have a list of competitions I will be competing at this summer (hopefully ending with the Commonwealth Games) if you would like to come and watch and hopefully I will do better than I did at Watford when you last came to see me! My competitions are:

Kent Championships: 8/9 May
Woodford Green Decathlon: 15/16 May
National Decathlon (Stoke) 5/6 June

After these competitions I will wait to see if I get offered any international competitions and either compete at those or find my own in England and abroad. On sponsorship news I thought I would let you know that I have been offered sponsorship from a law firm in Maidstone. Asb Law have offered me £500 and then further £500 increments for achieving targets they have set throughout the season up to £2,000 between now and October which is good news.”

“The money I have received [from the JWCT] has been a great help to my family and I. It has paid for lots of trials and training camps so far, I have also bought some really nice gym equipment so I can train better at home. I am extremely grateful. Also the trials went really well and I will be representing GB at the Munich international regatta . . .”

“It is nearly 3 months now since I applied for funding from your generous trust . . .
From my application, you may remember . . . I wrote to you asking if you may be interested in making a donation towards a trip to Tanzania I am involved with this summer, as part of my Queen's Scout Award. I have to thank you not only for your kind donation of £150 to my personal costs, but also to getting back to me so quickly! I can honestly say that if everyone were as generous as you and responded so quickly, it would make our lives organising such a venture much easier.

So, onto the project itself, and how it has evolved since you received my application. I believe that when I applied to you, our team was planning on building a 200,000-litre rainwater tank at St Mary's School in Tanzania. However, since then we have progressed with the project to its current state, almost unrecognisable from the initial idea we started with. Now, we are still going to St Mary’s School in Tabora, Tanzania but are instead building a 500,000-litre underground rainwater harvesting system. This, as you can imagine, was a huge decision for us to make but we felt it was necessary after carrying out careful research about the town and the school. The school itself has 620 pupils at present, 200 of which are boarders. The dry season in Tabora lasts around eight months, meaning that a 200,000-litre tank would frankly not be big enough . . . Due to this, we opted for the half-a-million litre tank, which will provide two litres of drinking water a day for each student, plus an additional four litres per boarding student . . .

As well as the construction, there are a few other things we have decided to do while we are in Tanzania. The project leader and myself are very keen on making this project able to occur every year. For this reason, we will be spending about a week travelling around the region, looking for further sites in need of a rainwater system such as ours. In addition to this, we will be taking with us a Del Agua water testing kit, to check the cleanliness of other rainwater harvesting systems which are already in place to ensure they are correctly maintained. We will be training the maintenance staff at the school on how to clean the tank and repair it if it breaks. This is so we are sure it will last its intended life span of 60 years. Our final 'mission' while in Tanzania is to negotiate a financial deal with a local gold mining company to pay for the future construction costs. We have already booked our appointment with them! . . .

As you are no doubt aware, there is a list of medical issues as long as my arm that we could come across in Tanzania. The one with the highest risk by far however is Malaria. Thanks to your kind donation, I was able to afford the most expensive Malaria tablets on the market - Malarone - which will hopefully ensure I return healthily from the project.”

Michael’s mother Lila sent the following update:

“Michael went to South Africa with the Dreams & Teams scheme run by the British Council. He firstly went to a conference with other school teachers and children studying sports leadership and was helped along with three other children who went on the trip to read a presentation about his course and what it involves. After this weekend they were taken to their base where they visited the special school in Mbumbalanga; they helped the children in their school work, planned a sport festival and got involved in all sports there everyday. This helped build Michael's confidence and gave him ideas for what he wanted to study when he leaves school involving sports and travel. After this week, the group had a weekend at Kruger National Park. The last week was spent again at the special school and at a nearby high school where more of the same work took place regarding sports and planning. I cannot thank you enough for helping in Michael's trip, it helped pay for his accommodation for the different places Michael had to stay at during his stay.”

Anna’s mother Christine sent the following update:

“Anna has had a knee injury and so the opportunity to meet was lost for this season as she had to pull out of three tournaments including the Tunbridge Wells one!! So it has been even more hectic than usual here trying to get her well enough with physios etc for the end of season Opens.”

“The 2009/10 season started on 1 September and after the short month off, it was hard to get back into the training. This early part of the season is pretty boring, it mainly consists of hours of long training sessions with not much racing opportunity. In this part of the year the main aim is to have a good rank at the first set of Great Britain trials, these trials work by everyone doing a 5km assessment in a single scull. This trial is done in Boston but due to bad weather it had to be cancelled.

Monthly I attend a World Class Start rowing camp which is usually at the National Watersports Centre. This year I have attended 5 camps and I have received 3 group promotions, which I think is good as there are only 5 groups and I am now in group C.

Over the Christmas break I attended a GB rowing camp in Nantes, France. Nantes was a fantastic opportunity for me to get to know people that may be in my crew later in the year. It was also really nice to not have to worry about anything apart from rowing, it really took me away from the general stresses of life. After Nantes, my training was lighter over Christmas . . .

Back into training on 2 January completely focused on the goal: February’s 5km GB pairs trial. By the time Tim and I had already been training in our pair for two months. But it was now so clear that every session was invaluable and that every stroke had to count. Over this time Tim had really been struggling with an injury, which is still ongoing. Tim continued to train and sometimes he found he wasn’t in any pain at all. The pair was really moving well, every session felt really good. Before I knew it was already February and trials were rapidly approaching; in the two weeks before the trials Tim was quite concerned about his leg but he convinced me it would be okay.

We arrived the day before the trials . . . Tim and I were completely focused . . .The next day we boated on time and were at the start when we needed to be. Everything was looking good as we set off we were already catching the two crews in front of us. Within the first 2km . . . for some reason it didn’t feel like Tim was putting his all into it. The following 3km I didn’t stop shouting at Tim practically begging him for more power. Even though we caught the crew in front of us, I wasn’t happy. We crossed the line, I was exhausted and Tim let out a cry shouting “my leg, my leg!”. I was really disappointed because I wanted to do so well. Tim went to see the GB physio and the news wasn’t good, she pulled him from the second day of trials. First day’s result we came 5th out of around 40 . . . On the second day I rowed with a person from Eton, we came 6th which was okay because it was the first time we had rowed together. Tim had to go for an MRI scan; luckily it came up all clear he just needed rest and stretching.

I recently competed in the national junior indoor rowing championships. I rowed in the Year 12 event, which I came second. I also rowed in the Oakwood Park team; we won this event which was really great.

Next week I will be trialing for GB and if successful I will represent them at the Munich international regatta.”

Ben’s mother Janet sent the following update:

“Just a proud Mum sending you a great advert and awareness campaign [new cinema advert promoting the WhizzKidz disability charity] . . . For those who do not know my Ben, he is the one at the end splashing the passer-by!

www.youtube.com/user/WhizzKidzUK”

“Here are some photos of my ski training trip to Hintertux, Austria. I have had a great training trip and have improved a lot. My coach is really pleased with my progress and I only broke one ski in a wipe-out! Thank you for your support which makes this all possible.”

Joe’s mother Steph Young sent the following update:

“The JWCT supported Joe in attending two international Epee competitions at which he did very well. He finished the season in seventh place in the GB Boys Epee Cadet rankings. Once the older fencers had been taken off the list he was in third place. This is his last year as a cadet (under-17s) and he needs to maintain the third place, or better, to qualify for the European Cadet Championships, in Athens in March 2010.

He went to a training camp in Hungary over the summer, where he met fencers from all over the world, it was a fabulous experience for him.

The first international of the season was in Bonn in October, he pulled out all the stops and fought his way to 20th place in a tough international in Bonn, he was the top Brit and on cloud nine for several days! The coach who went with the boys to Bonn was an inspiration to Joe, unfortunately he is based in Canterbury, and so we are looking at ways of getting Joe there sometime during the season. This is Joe’s last year as a Cadet (under-17) and he is competing in some of the junior competitions this season, so that he gets some experience before he has to fight for a top 12 place.
He has also been studying hard and did well, gaining four A*s, four As, three Bs and two Cs in his GCSEs and is studying politics, economics, physics and Japanese at AS level this year. Combining studying, cadet and some junior competitions is going to be a challenge for us all.

His commitment to fencing means that he can’t find a part-time job as he is competing or training most weekends, and studying in the evenings. Mind you he doesn’t have much time to spend money either!

Many thanks for the support last year it really made a difference.”

“I have attached photographs of an exhibition commissioned by Maidstone Borough Council to promote athletes with the idea of raising awareness. The exhibition was along the theme of the warrior and was displayed in Maidstone's Royal Star Arcade.”

“Since receiving my grant from the JWCT in June, I have purchased some duplicate equipment that will be necessary for international events and high level domestic events. I have also bought a high-speed camera that is extremely helpful for self-analysis and coaching. I have paid for three national tournaments, all of which have yielded top two placement results. For the next half year I will be putting the remainder of the grant towards the £3,000 needed for entry, accommodation and travel to GB National Series and ranking events.”

That decathlon was the Woodford Green decathlon, however, when I arrived it turned out to be the worst conditions I had ever competed in and therefore my decathlon didn’t come together quite as I’d planned. I finished on 6,580 points, someway short of my target. I then had one month before my next decathlon which was at the National Champtionships in Stoke. Unfortunately at some point during that month I picked up a slight shoulder injury which affected my performance in the pole vault and javelin. However, a number of other good performances, including another personal best in the hurdles and long jump as well as the shot putt, 400m and 1,500m, meant that my final score came out at a respectable 7,255 points taking second place, just three points behind first place. Agonisingly close yet I had still achieved my target of winning a medal and returned home happy.

After getting rid of my shoulder problem I then got set for my international competition to be held in Watford against France and the Netherlands. Again, being in good shape, things did not go my way when I became ill in the week leading up to the competition. Not one to give up I entered the competition anyway but it was clear from the start I was not going to score well. I finished in fifth place overall but with a disappointing score.

The International at Watford was supposed to be my last competition of the year but since they had not gone as well as I had planned I decided to enter the Kent Combined Events Championships later on in the year. I planned to enter the competition for fun more than anything and did not train particularly hard for it. However, after jumping just 1cm short of my best in the long jump I realised I was in better shape than I thought and decided to go for a good score. I finished the competition in first place and set a new championship record in the process. This has given me the much needed confidence to go on to train hard for next season where hopefully I will have a bit more luck in my competitions.

I have set my target high for next year at 7,700 points, the qualifying mark for the European Championships in Barcelona and for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Although it was high I think it is achievable with a lot of hard work and determination and if I don’t quite make it it will set me up well for the Olympics two years later.

My coaching has gone very well this year, you could say better than my competing. Three of my athletes qualified for national level competitions as well as many others gaining medals at the Kent Indoor and Outdoor Championships. The group is still growing in size and has many talented athletes in it. I am hoping that we will match the success of this year, which I am sure they will because they all work exceptionally hard."

Tim Ward-Wilson, an expedition participant, sent a brief update:

The expedition was a great success. We came away with lots of good scientific data and summited four unclimbed peaks. We will send you a full expedition report when they have been published.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed [the Junior European Championships in] Croatia, unfortunately I lost in the Quarter Finals, as this year they introduced seeding for the first time and I lost to the reigning World Champion and number one seed from Hungary. I beat fighters from Germany, Slovakia and Ireland.

Since my return from Croatia I have won the WKA National Championships, the second biggest kickboxing association in the world behind WAKO and yesterday won the Bristol Open competition, in the Men 70kg division, beating fighters from England, Scotland and Italy; the competition had fighters from Norway, Greece, Ireland and Italy, as well as the fighters from the UK, so was a good competition to win. Again I'd like to thank you for your help.”

“Thank you all for the sponsorship which I received yesterday. It will be a great help as my expenses over the last year worked out at over £7,000.”

Ben’s mother Janet sent the following update:

“This month Ben has attended the National Games at Stoke Mandeville where he had a great time over the three days of competition. He achieved the following: wheelchair basketball (Bronze), 25m Butterfly (Bronze), 25m Freestyle (Silver) and 25m Backstroke (Gold). He was also told that he has potential for fencing, shooting and archery!

But all in all he had a great time trying all the sports. There was a lovely article in our local paper, the Bucks Free Press about him and his sport . . . . He enjoyed the tennis, zone hockey and powerlifting and of course the . . . disco!

During the summer as you know Ben competed for Great Britain in New Zealand at mono-skiing. What a challenge that was and he can not wait to try again after having come seventh in his category.”

“Please find attached my report . . . in relation to the biological research I conducted this summer on the Farallon Islands with the kind support of the [JWCT].”

“I thank you and everyone at the JWCT for your help. My training is in full flight and I hope all my effort, time and dedication will pay off; your help has made it possible . . . I am looking forward to updating you.”

Tom Stewart, the expedition leader, wrote briefly to the JWCT:

“I have now returned from Kyrgyzstan, where we had an extremely successful trip. We got back on Sunday and are now recovering as we are very much lighter than when we left. We managed a three day ascent of the North Ridge of Kizil Asker, which we hope to name 'Scuplture's Peak' after the amazing rock sculpture on the route. The route will be named the Stewart / Gladwin ridge after its first ascentionists. We also managed another new route and one variation. It was an amazing adventure, to an amazing country.”

“I attempted to contact the [JWCT] a month or two ago to express our sincere gratitude for the funding that was kindly allocated to support our fieldwork on Belvedere Glacier in the Italian Alps. The team has since returned following a successful fieldwork campaign and is now knuckling down to process the data and get Masters dissertations and reports written! I have attached our preliminary report which has been submitted to the RGS, along with a photograph of John and Alex setting up the weather station on the glacier.”

Alessio Gusmeroli sent the following update:

“I am in Arctic Sweden again, at the Tarfala Research Station. When I got back from the spring 2009 field season (which was partially funded by your generous support) I received the delighting news that a big proposal I wrote in collaboration with my supervisor has been successful. National Geographic gave us US$ 18,000 to undertake extensive drilling and borehole based glaciological and geophysical measurements on the same glacier, Storglaciaren. Fieldwork is going very well, it started on 8 July and I will be back in the UK on 9 September. We have been testing new experiments in two different areas of the glacier and I look forward to come back and put together this new dataset, together with the measurements we carried out in the spring. The techniques we are using are innovative and I hope to obtain a comprehensive picture which will then be used to understand the glacier response to climate change. Other good news is that the first paper of this research is now ready to be submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research (one of the world´s leading journal in Earth Sciences). I am now three weeks left and my plan is to move all the equipment to a third site, higher up in the glacier.

I attach the poster that is going to be presented by my supervisor, Professor Tavi Murray, at the British Branch meeting of the International Glaciological Society, which will be held in Sheffield on 2 September. The poster shows the figures and the main message of the paper I am going to submit to the Journal of Geophysical Research when I will be back from the field.”

“Work and life here on the Farallon Islands is quietening down as the seabird breeding season is tailing off. Sadly, it has not been a very productive year for many birds; while it is a little early to say for sure, it seems that the fish populations in surrounding waters are inadequate to sustain birds and their chicks this year. It reinforces the significance of the research we are conducting here and what we are learning not just about birds, but about the entire marine ecosystem and the effects of environmental changes within these systems. I shall, of course, shed more light on this in the report which I will be writing following completion of the season.”

“Just to let you know how I got on at the weekend. I went to Stoke to compete at the National Decathlon Championships. Overall the weekend went very well with the results as follows: 100m - 11.57s; Long jump - 7.06m (pb); Shot putt - 12.62m (pb); High jump - 2.07m; 400m - 50.11s (pb); 110m Hurdles - 15.29s (pb); Discus - 35.63m, Pole vault - 4.26m; Javelin - 46.56m; 1,500m – 4min 29.69sec; Final result: 7255pts (pb)

After day one I was in first place. Going into the 1,500m I needed to beat the person in first by 6.5 seconds but after running a personal best I knew it was about that. The final result was that I was beaten into second place by three points. Disappointing but I'll get him next time! Overall a good weekend but there's still room for improvement, aiming for 7,300-7,400 points by the end of the year.”

Michael’s mother Maria sent the following update:

“On 15 May, Michael was runner-up in the Hertfordshire Young People of the Year Award for being a positive role model for helping and encouraging other young disabled people to participate in sport and showing by example that people with disabilities can also succeed.

Ben’s mother Janet sent the following update:

“Ben has got the chance to have his first race grading this summer in New Zealand with the Development Team. The A and B team will be there for the month and Ben is hoping to go for two weeks race training. After that the next event will hopefully be training camp in Austria in October half term with the Development Team.”

I managed to achieve a lot last year and much of it was due to your support. Qualifying for internationals adds a lot to my expenses as I have to do extra competitions as well as my usual national and regional ones. Thank you once again for coming to see me and for your support which helped me get in to the Australian Youth Olympics. Bringing a medal home for Britain is best thing I have done so far in gymnastics. I hope everyone is well, carry on the good work for the Jeremy Willson Charitable Trust, it is a wonderful cause.”

"After another year, and another grant, I have now improved from 6,500 points to 7,000 points making me the tenth ranked decathlete and the third ranked U23 decathlete in the country. I had a very successful season in 2008 which started with the National Combined Events Championships in Birmingham where I scored 6,945 points. This gained fifth place, which I was pleased with, although disappointed by the fact that I had come so close to achieving my target for the season of 7,000 points.

After my success at the national decathlon I was selected to represent Great Britain for the first time in an international combined events competition between Great Britain, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands to be held in Ashford. With Ashford being so close to my home I had great support from my friends, family, the Willsons and some of the athletes I coach. Although my first day did not start the way I’d have liked it to, with average performances in the 100m, long jump and shot putt, I had a huge personal best in the high jump with 2.10m, putting me back on track for a good score. With personal bests on the second day in the hurdles, pole vault and javelin in was left needing to run 4min 31sec to achieve my target of 7000 points. I finished the race in a time of 4 min 30.16sec for a new personal best and a total score of 7016 points placing me in fifth place in the competition.

This winter I have used a large amount of my JWCT funding on training in Spain. In November I went to Spain for two weeks of altitude training where I gained permission to train at the elite training centre in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. I then returned to Spain in April for warm weather training leading up to the start of the season. Both of these trips went well; and I am now in good shape for the season. I have my first decathlon in May 2009, followed by the National Championships in June 2009 where I am aiming to win a medal. I am also aiming to score 7500 points this season which I am hoping will gain me a place in the senior Great Britain team.

On the coaching side of my athletics my athletes have also shown great success. Two of the athletes in the group competed at English Schools in the 2008 season and they have all already shown they are in good form for the 2009 season by winning 11 medals between them in the Kent Indoor Championships. They have all shown improvement this year and the group is continuing to grow bigger and bigger. I am now coaching approximately 20 athletes."

“My recovery [from a fractured vertebrae following a car accident] is coming along well, I finished hydrotherapy on Monday and have a physio check up next Tuesday . . . I do have good news for you, Maidstone Borough Council have launched a website for potential Olympic athletes and businesses. There are about 20 athletes featured at the moment, each with a profile page. The aim is to get businesses to sponsor athletes, with the promise of advertisement on the website along with what the athlete can offer that business. The website is www.maidstonesdream.co.uk. Each performer will be featured in a local newspaper each month.”

Having taken part in the Welsh and the Northern Irish 4 Nations Disabled Badminton Tournaments, in February I took part in the English leg in Liverpool and this time managed to get through to the semi-finals in the Men's doubles. I'll be taking part in the Scottish 4 Nations from 3rd to 5th April and hope to do well.

In January I was invited to a visit of the Olympic Park and on the return we tried out the facilities at Lea Valley. That was really inspiring. I was also invited to a Celebration Dinner in Birmingham last month held in honour of the dwarf athletes who went to Beijing and I was one of the group of 2012 hopefuls who were presented to Gerry Sutcliffe and other dignitaries in the sports world on the night.

At school I'm the captain of the boccia team. We have had a couple of matches so far this year and will be competing at the Hertfordshire Youth Games in May. Soon it will be the cricket season and I have been asked to be the wicket keeper on the school team, so I'm looking forward to that.

The athletics season is coming and I am already entered into several competitions. From 1st to 4th May I have the annual National Dwarf Games in Birmingham and am entered into shot put, javelin, discus, relay, badminton, table tennis, football, hockey and basketball. We are having extra training sessions too as we have the World Dwarf Games in Belfast from 26th July to 2nd August. I'll be taking part in all of the events mentioned above.

On 10th May it is the UKA Parallel Success Track and Field Championships and I hope to qualify for the UK School Games. On 16th May I have the Regional DSE Athletics competition in Chelmsford and the National DSE Athletics championships in Blackpool in July. There are also the National Junior Games coming up in Stoke Mandeville again in June. As you can see I'm going to be very busy.

The funding which you provided me with has been a great help towards the travel expenses to all of these places, towards accommodation and the kit which I need for all of the different sports I do. My heart is still set on getting into the 2012 Paralympics.”