01 02 03 The Princess and The Pickle: One, tutu, three... Team Honk & the Comic Relief Danceathon 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

One, tutu, three... Team Honk & the Comic Relief Danceathon

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http://my.rednoseday.com/sponsor/helenkate


Red Nose Day 2015 is just around the corner and we're back again hoping to raise lots of money for Comic Relief!

Myself and good friend, Kate, will be dancing alongside the likes of Claudia Winkleman and Arlene Phillips at the official Comic Relief Danceathon at Wembley this March!  Just a couple of months too young to take part, my daughter will be making her own red nose day routine at home (with her own Stomp inspired soundtrack - and while painting a giant red nose!), along with another colouring competition and some fab button art!

 

So, back to the Danceathon...  

I studied dance at Uni, back in the good old days when The University of Winchester was known as King Alfred's College.  Yet, while other very lucky uber-talented dancers from my course went on to perform with the likes of Take That, I, well I didn't.  So please lower your expectations... it's been a while!  But I did recently have my 15 seconds of YouTube fame here and got to perform with a 'real' dancing dinosaur - thanks Marwell!

The very talented Briony Albert dancing with Take That at Manchester Stadium

Kate and I have completed a fair few Danceathons in our time.  There was the 10 hour one we organised while at college and... OK, so that's the only real Danceathon we've done but I guess all the hours we spent on the dancefloors of the likes of Time and Plug count too...  Oh and the week we spent in Ibiza, it was all adding up to this moment!  There will be a bar at the Danceathon, right?!

Anyway, fast forward ten years, two babies, zero exercise and a fair bit of sciatica and the honest truth is I'm totally unprepared for 6 whole hours of dancing.  So, the training has started, I'm Zumba-ing (is that a word?) my way back into some sort of shape (any shape will do) in the hope I don't fall over in a heap 6 minutes in.  Whatever happens, I must remember to style it out with jazz hands and all will be fine!

A little about Team Honk

So, Team Honk, a fabulous community of fundraising bloggers, first started raising money for Comic Relief back in 2013, climbing mountains and chopping off their hair to raise close to £10,000.  My daughter learnt 25 different styles of dance, putting them all together into one routine (see the video here), raising £80 and she is very excited to be putting together a new Stomp-inspired routine this year, which I look forward to sharing with you soon! (Click here to sponsor her)

For 2014's Sport Relief, Team Honk completed an epic relay across the UK, raising just over £30,000.  We did our bit as a family and braved some truly awful weather last February to do a one mile 'sponsored splash' through the New Forest.  It was pretty much just one big puddle!



So, this year Comic Relief have reserved 500 of their 2000 Danceathon places for Team Honk, which I'm very proud to be part of.  And this year the team target is £50,000.

How you can help

The minimum amount Comic Relief would like each Danceathon participant to raise is £150 (but of course we'd love to raise much more if we can).  So, if you'd like to sponsor us here we'd really appreciate it.  

Oh.  Did I mention Kate and I will be dressed in Where's Wally outfits too? 

 
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