CHEQUES were presented to three charities following Jill Beavis’ 22 mile kayak challenge from Eddystone Lighthouse to Hope Cove.

On Sunday, July 30, 65-year-old Jill Beavis kayaked 22 miles for the Eddystone Challenge 2016 with her trainer Ben Sherring of Sea Kayak Salcombe. Despite being ‘terrified of the sea’ she managed it in six-and-a-half hours.

She did it to raise money for three charities: The Hope Cove Lifeboat, the Fisherman’s Reading Room in Hope Cove and Sense, the deaf-blind charity. On Tuesday she handed over three cheques.

She split the £7,270 raised between the three charities, with some donations being made specifically to one charity or another, meaning she was able to give a cheque for £2,410 to Graham Phillips of the Hope Cove Lifeboat, £2,360 to David Morgan the Fisherman’s Reading Room and £2,500 to Sense.

David Morgan accepted Jill’s cheque on behalf of the Fisherman’s Reading Room as the chair of the committee. When asked what they were planning to do with the money, he said: ‘We need to discuss it as a committee, but the roof is nearly 100-years-old.

‘We had some remedial work done on it recently and its not in the best repair so we may need to build up a roof fund over the next few years to have it replaced and recovered, but we will discuss it as a committee at the next meeting.’

Graham Philips, chair of the Hope Cove Lifeboat, said they would be looking at three areas to spend the money from Jill’s donation: ‘In the last 12-18 months, we have had six new recruits. They are competent and keen but they need official qualifications, so we need to send them on Maritime and Coastguard Agency courses.

‘We’re also in our sixth year so some things are starting to wear out, we recently had to renew our launching tractor and in another five years we will have to replace the boat. We will set up a “sinking fund” - excuse the pun - for this. Since our boat gets more of a battering in harsher conditions than other boats, the MCA gives it a working life of ten years before we have to replace it.’

Jill, who has raised hundreds of thousands of pounds for Sense since turning 50, explained that her donation to the charity will go towards the ‘TouchBase’ centre in Birmingham. ‘It is due to open in January 2017, and will be a centre for young deaf-blind children and adults in a purpose-built building with the facilities for performing arts, conferences, a cafeteria and much more.’ said Jill.

Jill is not planning to slow don anytime soon and is already gearing up for a trek across the Bale Mountains in Ethiopia to raise more money for Sense, along with a group of other fundraisers, and together they aim to raise £100,000, so far the total sits at around £70-80,000. They set off on Friday, October 21.

You can donate to Sense via Jill’s fundraising page at: http://tinyurl.com/JillBeavisEthiopia. You can find out more about Sense on their website: www.sense.org.uk, The Fisherman’s Reading Room on the Hope Cove website: http://tinyurl.com/FishermansReadingRoom and The Hope Cove Lifeboat on their website: www.hopecovelifeboat.org.