Welcome again to the annual Mouse Island Swim sponsored by Visit Kalkan. This year we aim to make our Community Swim bigger and better than ever and in turn we are aiming to help many more.

We welcome and very much appreciate donations at all levels. For those making a contribution of 100 GBP or more we have arranged a special commemorative gift from our sponsor. Designed by our own Simon Sharp and wocven from the finest soft cotton in Denizli, these generously sized Turkish towels will be a lovely keepsake, with our appreciation.

On a personal level our swim offers you the chance to set an individual open water swim challenge of 500 m, 1.5km or 5.4 km. By registering to join us as a swimmer on 1st October you will benefit from the motivation and focus of committing to a group.

AKUT are planning to organise a race from the island on Sunday 2nd October. More information will be available here when known or directly from AKUT.

Help others: in joining us you will commit to raise some money through sponsorship for our causes. This year we will be supporting four schools and also AKUT the search and rescue organisation.

• Çayköy Village Primary School has won an international award for its work on reducing waste from plastic. It has carried out local impact studies and is promoting a scheme to eliminate the dumping of empty agricultural chemical containers. The staff team want to install a teaching area for practical work using two containers.
• Kınık Village Primary School do not have a secure boundary on two side of their school. Balls go into the road and rubbish and older children are prone to come in after hours. To create a safer, more secure space they would like to build a dwarf stone wall topped by fencing.
• Ova Village First School have low numbers and the furniture and storage is poor quality. They want to renovate and upgrade their teaching areas.
• AKUT wants to buy a second vehicle for attending at emergencies and disasters. Currently volunteers have to use their own transport. They have half of the money needed.

UPDATE  We are also welcoming a small team from Kaş to swim specifically to support Kaş Lise. Anybody who donates and includes a message of support mentioning Kaş Lise can be confident that their money will go to the Lise to help them buy essential heating for the boarding houses and other essential requirements.

We have set a provisional target of 6,000 pounds sterling for each project giving a total of 30.000. Let's bring a smile to a few faces and show what Kalkan can do when we pull together.

A registration form will be available for you to complete soon. There will be a small registration charge of 150 TL (about 7 GBP currently) to cover any admin costs, such as a coloured swimming cap (red 5.4 km, Orange 1.5 km and Green 0.5 km) and any other incidentals.

All information will be available from this site or it will be clearly signposted from here. Watch this space. It will grow as we move towards 1st October.