Help me compete at my first World Transplant Games

Hi, I'm Wayne. I'm an ordinary person who has been given the extraordinary opportunity to represent my country on the world stage, but I need your help to get there. There is no funding available to individual athletes, and the cost of competing, training, travel, accommodation, and kit will be more than £4,000. I don't feel like I can turn down this opportunity, but I really can't do it without your support. To try to give something back, I have set some challenges at the end of this page, so please read through.

Thanks to the generosity of people offline (I don't know how to add offline donations on here), Newcastle Hospitals Charity, and the Sir James Knott Trust, I have been able to reduce my fundraising target on here. I am overwhelmed by the support I have received, and I will work hard to make you all proud.

I was in and out of the hospital from around the age of 13 to around the age of 21. This meant that physically I wasn't ever really able to develop athletically, and maintaining friendships was complicated. Fortunately, in 2006 my sister donated one of her kidneys to me. This improved my quality of life more than I can explain.

I have been playing catch-up since my transplant, never really having time to plan my next move, but I was making progress, and I managed to marry the most amazing woman I could ever hope to meet. Then came the pandemic, and I was labelled Clinically Extremely Vulnerable, which made me feel like I was ill all over again. My loved ones were worried about me. I was afraid I might lose my kidney if I caught the virus. This helped me to realise the gift that organ donation had given me and how much more I'm capable of because of it.

I decided to register for the British Transplant Games, which acted as an incentive to get fitter. It gave me the opportunity to meet some fantastic people who simply wouldn't be here without organ donation, as well as some of the donors and families of donors who have saved these lives. Being autistic and having not been around my peers for much of my adolescence means that making new friends does not come easily to me. Still, the competition and the supportive nature of the people involved quickly made me feel included.

My involvement in the British Transplant Games helped me to get back into ten-pin bowling, a sport that I had loved before falling ill. I have shown significant improvement since I took the sport back up, and on the strength of that, I was invited to represent Team GB&NI at the World Transplant Games 2023. I am not as good as I was, but with hard work, I believe I can get there before the games start in April.

The World Transplant Games is about promoting the power of organ donation and encouraging transplant recipients to get fit for life. Getting back into sports has helped both my physical and mental well-being. My invitation allows me to participate in up to 5 events. This will include ten-pin bowling singles and doubles. It will also include the 5k run. In my training for the 5k donor run, and the 5k run leg of the triathalon relay, I have gone from being unable to run the whole 5k to clocking a Parkrun time of under 21 minutes. I feel I can be competitive in this race with six more months of training. It will also include the 100m sprint because I am much more of a natural sprinter than a distance runner.

I have also created a Facebook page to keep everyone up to date with my World Transplant Games story, which you can find here: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086757722658

To say thank you for your generous donations, here are some things I will do at each milestone:

At £1,000, I will commit to doing the donor run (a 5k run) at the British Transplant Games in Coventry in fancy dress (and there will be photographic evidence). I encourage all donors to suggest which fancy dress I wear (bearing in mind that there will be children present, and costs will need to be kept reasonably low). I will put these suggestions to a vote on my Facebook page, and the winner of the vote is how I will dress. Suggestions so far include a hula girl, 118, a koala, a bowling ball or pin, a great white shark, Scooby Doo, and Santa.

At £1,500 I will do a dip in the English sea in just my swim shorts. A video of my dip will be shared on my Facebook page.

At £2,000, accountability comes in. If I hit this target, I will promise you results or penance. If I return a World Champion, I will have done you proud, and no penance will be required. If I return a silver medalist, I will commit to doing a local half marathon (probably the GNR) for falling a little short. If I return a bronze medalist, I will commit to running the Kielder marathon (known, locally at least, for being difficult) to make up for falling short. If I earn no medal, I will commit to a local ultramarathon, so I have a long hard run to think about letting you all down (of course, this won't happen because I'm going to go out there and make you all proud). Please note, these have been edited to become more local to reflect my thanks for the incredible local support I have received.

At £3,000, you have gone above and beyond to make this dream a reality. I will accept suggestions for a challenge from all my donors and put them to a vote.