Scottish Motor Racing Club Volunteer Marshals raise over £3.5k
Scottish Motor Racing Club Volunteer Marshals raise over £3.5k for the Scottish Association for Mental Health.
In 2018 we were all devastated after the sad loss of one of our friends, colleagues, brother and marshal to suicide.
With motorsport being largely male orientated it’s a concern that 75% of suicide are males and suicide is the highest single killer in men under 45 years old. Over 5 times higher than female suicide rates. In one year alone, suicide in males would fill 4 football staduims. Let that sink in.
SAMH worked closely with our marshals team and trained 11 of us in Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST)
It was decided that on the Saturday evening of the BTCC visit to Knockhill we would host a BBQ as a good opportunity for a social get together and this quickly developed into a fundraising opportunity. SAMH was the obvious beneficiary for us and donations were made by all attending. Once word of this activity got out we received some sizable donations from The Scottish Motor Racing Club, Knockhill Racing Circuit, The SuperCar Experience Group, The Scottish Legends Cars Championship and a couple of employee match funding from Chivas Brothers and Bank of Scotland.
On Sunday the 8th October the SMRC hosted the SAMH team with their “Wellbeing On Wheels “ bus at Knockhill and presented them with a cheque for £3730.
Catriona Wilson from SAMH accepted the cheque and addressed the marshals thanking them and highlighting that this year the charity has celebrated 100 years of mental health care in Scotland, predating the NHS
