Pilgrim's Walk for Fife Young Carers

Fife Rotary Pilgrim Way Walk

At the District Assembly in March last year we heard about Dundee Rotary’s plans for their walk of the Fife Coastal Path. What a great idea! But…....perhaps Rotarians in Fife could also do a walk which would support a local Fife based charity? Having walked both the coastal path and the Pilgrim Way I thought the latter would make a great challenge. On the bus home I shared my thoughts with Craig from Cowdenbeath. He didn’t think I was mad, and so the planning began.

Over the summer I contacted all the Rotary clubs in Areas 9, 10 and 11, put together a rough plan and invited Tim and Dai from Dundee to speak at a meeting of Burntisland and Kinghorn Rotary to which members of the other clubs were invited.

From there it took off. 12 clubs decided to take part, and so The Fife Rotary Pilgrim Way Walk was born. The 64 mile walk from Culross/North Queensferry to St Andrews following in the footsteps of the Medieval pilgrims, was divided into 7 sections with clubs taking responsibility for their section. The criteria for the charity which would benefit was that it had to be a Fife charity which supports young people, so Fife Young Carers was chosen. Regular meetings, mainly on Whatsapp, kept everyone in touch with progress, and by our final face to face meeting in mid-May we were raring to go.

Sunday 31^st May did not initially dawn sunny and dry, in fact a very confused bus driver wondered why there were so many people crammed in the bus shelter in North Queensferry, including 2 ladies dressed as pilgrims, Simon the Pilgrim Way Pastor and Hamish Brown the walker and author who joined our group. However as soon as there was a blink of sun we set off, as did the other groups at their respective starting points. Over the next few hours photos popped up on our Whatsapp page. They showed a fantastic walk. The sun continued to shine on us as we enjoyed fellowship with friends new and old. We successfully reached our finishing lines, then it was off to St Andrews for those who could manage, including Chris and Emily from Fife Young Carers and Ian Bradley who wrote the book The Fife Pilgrim Way. We celebrated at St Leonards School with tea, coffee, home baking and more photos as everyone relaxed after a fantastic day.

And yes, it has been fantastic – almost £6000 raised with another £1000+ from Gift aid, all going to support Fife Young Carers to provide respite, activities and bursaries for the young people who are the unsung heroes of their families.

Thanks goes to everyone who was involved in any way, especially the Rotarians from the Fife clubs who got behind the crazy idea.

Working together works!

What’s next? Well…..it’s just a suggestion, but maybe on a chosen date clubs climb a hill in Fife? There are 58 Triangulation Points at varying levels to choose from.Or, and this is a big one, could we do a District challenge with Clubs across 1010 all walking for their communities on the same day?I leave it with you !