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Ivybridge Community College

Ivybridge Community College

The Rowing Marine

On Wednesday, 22 November Ivybridge Community College Year 8 and Year 9 students were given the opportunity to meet the inspirational Lee Spencer “The Rowing Marine" a formal Royal Marine who experienced a life changing accident and lost half of his right leg. Lee is a true inspiration and spoke to our students about how we view life and each other and he believes that every failure in his life is an opportunity to keep trying harder and succeed.  Lee has rowed across the Atlantic with three other injured veterans under the "Row2Recovery" charity.  He was awarded a Guinness World Record for his success.

On Thursday, 18 January 2018, Lee aka 'The Rowing Marine' will be undertaking an unsupported solo rowing attempt 3,500 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.  Starting from Gibraltar and ending in Venezuela.  The attempt will raise money for the Royal Marines Charity and the Endeavour Fund.  Lee will be the world's first physically disabled person to row this route solo and unsupported from mainland Europe to mainland South America, setting a new Guinness World Record, proving there is life beyond injury.

We are delighted to be invited as Ivybridge Community College students to keep track of Lee’s journey and we are planning to speak to him in the Year 9 assembly during this endeavour via his satellite phone.  As a consequence of Lee's visit students have decided to carry out a “sponsored indoor row" to match Lee's distance and they hope to complete the same target as Lee with a total of 3500 miles which is 5,632,704 metres.  This will involve staff and students from across the College and it will help build upon our "Everyone Different, Everyone Equal" campaign that we started in Anti Bullying Week.

On Wednesday, 6 December a mufti-day will be held and all monies raised and any sponsorship from our Indoor Row will go towards Lee's "The Rowing Marine" fundraising page:

https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/fundraiser-display/showROFundraiserPage?userUrl=LeeJSpencer&pageUrl=5