In the next in the series of Great British Adventures, Pete Woodward heads to the English Lake District for a new style of amphibious race.

Adventure sports have exploded over the last decade with people looking for bigger and more exciting challenges to test themselves against. One of the most exciting new formats is Swimrun, a concept born in Sweden where the official brand is called ÖtillÖ. A whole race format has evolved from a late-night in a bar on the Swedish archipelago. Two teams of two made a bet and raced each other across the vast collection of islands from one end to the another, running further than a marathon distance over the islands and swimming between them in a continuous race. More than 15 years later, the concept has followed IKEA and meatballs to become a great Swedish export and this original route hosts a World Championship with qualifying events around Europe. There are now several races established in the UK, with an official ÖtillÖ brand race on the Isles ...

Picture the scene; two days of fast-paced action as some of the world’s top polo players battle it out against a backdrop of some of the finest coastline in Britain. Then when the sun starts to slide into the horizon, the gathered thousands party into the summer night to some of the finest DJs on the music scene.

Running for twelve years and still going strong, there is no stopping the enthusiasm of those who flock to the beautiful beaches of Sandbanks, Dorset. Held on the second weekend in July to join in with what has become known as “the Sandbanks weekend” in the sporting and social calendar of the south coast of England.

Curiosity brought people to watch high-quality beach polo at Sandbanks for the first few years but since then the parties, hospitality, fashion shows, international volleyball, and beach rugby and, for the last three years, the SandfestUK music festival have kept the audience guessing and wanting more.

Johnny Wheeler, the man behind Sandpolo explains. “We came u...

My hands are freezing. My trousers are soaked. The pelting rain sounds like popping corn under the hood of my raincoat. Droplets run along my eyebrows and drip from my nose but shaking them off is futile. I glance at DJ, and we both break a smile. Sunshine is overrated anyway.

When the alarm rang early, I had peeked through the curtain to find a misty morning with rabbits grazing on the lawn. But the downpour had begun the same time the rabbits had scattered – the moment we left the front door. Now we plod along the causeway that winds beside the dunes, stepping aside for passing cars.

“Sleep well?” DJ asks. I wipe the rain from my face and think before I answer. DJ and I first met while working on a radio project tackling child poverty. We had visited developing countries together, discovered some shared interests, and enjoyed long conversations about life and God. DJ had moved his family to Aberdeen from Australia soon after Merryn and I came to Oxford, allowing some shared hol...

Over the past five years, Chris Pratt has gone from comedy sidekick to Hollywood heavyweight. His physique and career may have changed dramatically, but his steadfast faith remains the same – and the star is determined to be a role model as well as a leading man.

In all of modern Hollywood you’d be hard-pressed to find a more rags-to-riches story than Chris Pratt’s journey to cinematic super-stardom. Nowadays it’s hard to imagine the Minnesota native as anything other than a man completely suited to play the plethora of heroic on-screen alter egos he has portrayed in recent franchises – from Guardians of the Galaxy’s Peter Quill to Jurassic World’s Owen Grady and even The Lego Movie’s Emmet Brickowski.

But at the origin of his career Pratt was living up to the stereotypes of the struggling actor, bussing tables at a Bubba Gump Shrimp in Maui, Hawaii, and sleeping in a tent on a nearby beach. It’s a memory that stays with him even now, with a multi-billion dollar haul at the glob...

One Man’s Story of Hope in all Circumstances

In early 2003, a 16-year-old Lincolnshire lad was taken ill. Not for a moment thinking it was anything too serious, his mum decided to take him to the doctor. Some weeks later the diagnosis was confirmed: Dave Bell had a very rare and aggressive cancer attacking the back of his right eye. So rare that only three people in a million are likely to contract it.

The news was a terrible shock. But, as Dave soon started to understand, sickness or struggle doesn’t ask for a polite invitation into your life. It just shows up one day, sometimes with devastating effects. “At first my life was rocked,” he says. “I was 16, and like most 16-year-old boys I thought I was invincible, but suddenly I was confronted with the biggest battle of my life.” Now, ‘Life Out Loud’, the song of that battle and his story of hope through faith has been picked up by a major US marketing company and will be released in April, with the aim of inspiring hope in every ...

How Different Generations Can Help Each Other Lead. An abridged extract from Leading – The Millennial Way

CEOs to senior leaders, pastors to PCC members – leaders know who they are and what they’re doing, right?

Unfortunately, as many of you may know, that’s not the case.

Over my own 28 years of being in senior leadership at a FTSE 100 company and later CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, there were times where I (and many of the other leaders around me) felt the need to hide behind masks and shield our true identities. But if God has called us – flaws and all – into a leadership role, surely, he wants us to bring our whole glorious self?

From a cursory glance, it seemed that this is something the generation below us – millennials (born 1984 to 2000 and currently aged 18 to 35) – were doing really well, but I was also concerned that they had been badly stereotyped as entitled, lazy and disloyal.

Given that millennials are the leaders of today – the leaders of our businesses, chari...

Over the last couple of years, I have experienced grief in various forms and through a series of “goodbyes”: London, a place I loved, XLP, a charity I started and worked with for 22 years, and now my nan, one of my favourite people to walk this earth. Again, I wrestle with my thoughts and ponder on what it really means…

My nan was a precious soul. Alzheimer’s disease took her mind years ago and as a family, we have had to witness this beautiful lady slowly get worse over time. Seeing her memory deteriorate to the point of not remembering who we are has been a painful experience, and especially so for my dad. Watching this amazing lady no longer react to what was going on around her, seeing her void of emotions when faced with what once brought her pure joy, has been really tough.

We could argue that the person we knew and loved had already left us ten years ago in some ways. Yet, there she was in front of us, a body and a face and every now and then, there was an odd smile, a wor...