On July the 8th, Paradise Wildlife Park was proud to have our CEO Lynn Whitnall taking part in the Queen’s Baton Relay for the Birmingham 2022 commonwealth games taking place this Summer.
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Lynn Whitnall had been nominated to carry The Queen’s Baton for the community following her incredible fundraising effort including over £100,000 for both Paradise Wildlife Park the Zoological society of Hertfordshire and The Big Cat Sanctuary our sister site in Ashford, Kent which Lynn sits on as a trustee. Her fundraising includes some incredible achievements such as climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kala Patthar, and to Everest Base Camp, a relay swim of the channel, trekking the Sumatran rainforest with a tiger patrol unit tackling poaching and not to mention this Summer will be Lynn’s 19th consecutive marathon run. Lynn is her own force of nature and has continued to make the whole team and community proud of her incredible achievements not to mention her kindness and care for others in her community.
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The Birmingham Commonwealth is holding the 16th official Queen’s Baton Relay which involves the incredible journey across the Commonwealth, with the Baton visiting all 72 nations and territories with the baton concluding at the start of the games in Birmingham on the 28th July. The aim of the Baton journey that began on the 7th October 2021 is to ignite hope, solidarity and collaboration as it works to connect communities and share the inspirational stories of the baton holders along the way.
Lynn Whitnall was joined by Mallory Franklin the British Slalom canoeist who is a silver olympian holder and has competed internationally since 2009. The relay took place in the early afternoon as the sun created a beautiful backdrop for this leg of the baton relay. They set off first walking around the Lee Valley White Water Centre with the baton in hand. Both Lynn and Mallory then took to the waters to carry the baton through the white waters which had previously hosted the 2012 olympics. Mallory was positioned in front to start off the leg of the journey with Lynn positioned within the white water raft with the team holding the baton to take the honorary water part of the relay. They were greeted with cheers and excitement from local school groups and the commonwealth mascot with the baton then setting off for the next leg of its journey around the county and then ending its journey for the start of the games.
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Paradise Wildlife Park is proud to be able to support the community and represent the bourgh in the Queen’s Baton relay and we would like to wish Lynn Whitnall our CEO a very big congratulations on this honour of being selected to carry the Queen’s baton and for her continuous fundraising work she does.
