It's all smiles and loivin' yesterday after the proceeds from Battle of the Codes was delivered! L to R: Glenn, Jo and Michael (MJ).

Yesterday, Glenn McVeigh, Manager of Al Fresco’s Hoi An, and the Swannies’ MJ handed over an envelope containing VND45.5 million (USD2,200) to Jo Stewart, Director of Swim Vietnam, at JASPA’s Beach Club, An Bang Beach, Hoi An.

The money was raised by the Hanoi members of the Vietnam Swans who co-organised a Trivia Night on 16 June 2011 with the wonderful assistance of our good friends at JASPAS in Hanoi Towers.

JASPAS Beach Club is also supporting beach lifesaving skills and patrols at An Bang Beach.

Below, Jo Stewart writes in.

Yesterday I received the money raised by the Swans at the Hanoi Trivia Pursuit night. Michael Johnston and Glenn McVeigh from Jaspas Hoi An made the handover of VND45.5 million (USD2,200).

As you can see from the attached photo it was a very friendly handover!

Swim Vietnam is training kids to feel comfortable in the water.

Thanks again to you all for the Swannies support for Swim Vietnam. We really appreciate all the hard work and time which has gone into this and other fund raising events. Your contribution to us this year have been fabulous. Thank you from all at Swim Vietnam and a particularly heartfelt thank you from me.

I will ensure that the money is spent in the best way possible to ensure the most children learn to swim through our program.

Just a quick update. We just completed the 3rd program of the summer (one more to go) and had the graduation ceremony last Sunday. I am still doing the analysis on all the final swim test results but it looks as if this has been our most successful program yet.

255 successfully completed the course and the results achieved were excellent. This is a direct result of the continued training and improvement of the Vietnamese teachers. More than 75 children were able to swim over 40 metres freestyle and one boy actually swam 900!!! Considering they could not swim at all six weeks ago, this is a very impressive result. However what is even more important was that nearly all the children completing the course could swim the required 20m and keep afloat for 2 mins as this is what is important for survival.

Many many thanks again and hope to see you soon

Cheers

Jo, Swim Vietnam
Swim Vietnam is a charity which provides free swimming and water safety lessons to Vietnamese children
UK Charity Number SC042133
www.swimvietnam.com

Photos:

To see photos of the fundraiser (thanks MJ) and of Swim Vietnam (thanks Jo) in operation, click here.

Footnote: Special thanks to MJ, C Dan Hopkins and Adrian Enright who did so much to make the Battle of the Codes fundraiser actually happen.