ORGANISER of Westbury’s Hilly Helmet Challenge race for charity, Robin-Mark Schols, has been nominated for a BBC Radio Wiltshire Make a Difference award.
Robin-Mark was nominated for the award in the fundraising category by Brain Tumour Support after raising over £20,000 for the charity over the past six years. Robin-Mark, from Dilton Marsh, is one of four finalists for the fundraising award and the winner will be announced on the 25th September at an awards ceremony at the Devizes Corn Exchange.
He said, “With this event and some other smaller ones, I have raised over £20,000 for Brain Tumour Support – they very kindly contacted BBC Radio Wiltshire to nominate me for the award, which came as a huge surprise and an honour. It was a thrill to be nominated but my first reaction was, why me? There must surely be people out there who are doing far more.
“The race started as a one-off, but it proved to be so popular that we are now in our sixth year! The whole event is based on my own personal experiences of going through that trauma and to reduce the stigma associated with it.”
Robin-Mark had to wear a safety helmet for almost a year to protect his head after having part of his skull removed, following an operation to address a brain infection.
He added, “You can imagine you get some looks when you’re walking around with a helmet, so I created the event to give people a little taster of what some of us have to go through, as well as raising awareness to brain injuries and trying to reduce any stigma associated with it. My hope is that if people knew why some of us have to wear helmets, they could be a bit more sympathetic.
“When I had to wear the helmet, I had people shouting abuse out of cars to me, and people were giving me a wide berth on pavements as if I was infectious – it wasn’t a nice experience and I hope no one else has to go through that. This event is all about turning a negative experience into a positive outcome for other people – I never had any hopes to be nominated for an award.”
Robin-Mark is a keen runner himself, having run the Bath Half Marathon in 89 minutes wearing a helmet. He has asked for anyone who enjoyed the recent Hilly Helmet challenge to visit the Racecheck website and officially review the race, so more people can be made aware of the event.
The Hilly Helmet challenge received an industry-recognised gold award by Racecheck in 2019 and Robin-Mark received a certificate by the founder of Brain Tumour Support, Tina Mitchell-Skinner, for raising over £20,000 for the charity. Robin-Mark says his race is in the running for another industry ward this year.
