SUDEP Action

Making every epilepsy death count
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John Coley's golf event raises funds for SUDEP Action


We held a charity golf event at the Lyme Regis Golf Club in Dorset, to raise funds for SUDEP Action and another epilepsy charity.

I am currently the Club Captain at Lyme Regis Golf Club. Every year, the Club Captain and the Lady Captain nominate a charity or charities for whom they raise funds throughout their year on tenure. This year Lady

Captain Caroline Baker and I decided to join forces to raise funds in the fight against sudden death in epilepsy. We nominated SUDEP Action as one of the two charities that were going to share the results of our collections. 

We decided to raise funds for these charities because there is a couple at the golf club who lost a child through sudden death in epilepsy some years ago. I also have a mature niece who has mild epilepsy, and a colleague whose young son also has the condition. 

On Saturday, 4th June, we held our big Golfing event. I successfully completed my hoped for 4 rounds of golf and exceeded my 120 points with 127 points. I played from 06:15am to 19:30pm, with only a 90 minute break for a rub down with The Sporting Life

I played as many holes of golf as possible in the day, and sought sponsorship not on how many holes I played, but on how well I played. One of golf’s scoring systems is with Stableford points which are won according to how well each hole is played. To play to one’s handicap, 36 points was the target. I play off a handicap of 7, aged nearly 67; I needed all my stamina, as well as skill, to play from dawn to dusk. Each round was well over 4 miles, and the terrain is not flat. I completed at least 3 rounds (54 holes) and 4 (72 holes) before my arthritic hips screamed to stop. 

It’s great to know that I am raising funds to help prevent unnecessary epilepsy deaths. It seems to be an underestimated danger and the more I have spoken about it, the more people I discover are unaware of the risks. As well as raising funds, the event helped us to raise much needed awareness.