My "Pioneer" for Motor Neurone Disease Association of NZ

Hi everyone. My name is Pierre and I work for Fulton Hogan in Christchurch. On Monday the 14th October I received the email from a person within Fulton Hogan inviting all to hear Graeme Smith from MND NZ speak about his experiences and challenges with this disease. Please go to the MND NZ website and find out more about MND, it's effect on the people suffering from it, and the courageous stories, and the awesome work the support team do.

During Graeme’s talk, I had this overwhelming feeling of “how can I help?” How can I help to get this terrible thing beaten? How can I attempt to make a difference to someone suffering with MND?After all, here I stand privileged to be able to get on normally with life - I breathe, I eat, I walk, I run, I cycle..... I presented my idea...this was to try and leverage off an event I have entered, so that we could raise some much needed money (and awareness) for this VERY worthy cause. This event for me is certainly one of the most challenging things I have ever attempted.

I have entered for "The Pioneer" this year. It's a multi stage mountain bike race traversing through, around, and over the Southern Alps down Queenstown way. The race is over 6 days (stages) which sees us take on 433km with 12500 meters of climbing. 6 months ago I was just a weekend warrior trying to keep fit and healthy. After spending the last 5 months, in what is for me a VERY foreign "training mode", I think I now have what it takes to finish this thing - I'm far from an elite "lean athlete", but more than a "weekend warrior"!! This will be a serious test for me.

So I'd like to use my blessed, fit and healthy 50 year old body to partner with MND NZ and put in all the effort I can on the bike to raise as much money as I can to help with the great work the MND NZ team do for the people suffering with this disease.

MND NZ rely on the support of some large organisations, BUT a lot of their funding comes in through the very generous donations of ordinary people like you and I. Please partner with me...I'd like to set a modest target of $500. I'm hoping we can blow out this target and bless this organisation with some much needed funding.