As many of us know, your world can come crashing down around you in a matter of minutes and at the end of last year that happened to a good friend of mine, Dominic Subbiani, when he was diagnosed with Huntington’s disease.

Dom is well known within the industry.

He’s been a big presence within the Relocation Agent Network and Fine & Country for years.

He’s got a great business in FBM in Tenby, a client of ours for almost a decade.

As well as being a tremendous family man, he is always the first to help people, without any reward.

It is why so many people in the industry love him and I’m sure the comments at the bottom of this article will reflect that clearly.

Huntington’s is one of a series of degenerative diseases and currently is a death sentence with life expectancy not usually beyond 10-15 years.

It’s particularly evil in that there’s a 50% chance of passing it on to your children and I think that all of us who are parents will go cold at the thought of having to face that.

However, in an effort to try and find that rather British dark humour in a horrible situation, I said to Dom that he was at the same time the luckiest and unluckiest people I’ve known as in the weeks after he was diagnosed there was a ‘once in a lifetime’ breakthrough in some of the clinical trials.

Although early days, it appears promising but clearly needs a lot more funding to try and save as many as we can.

So there was no time to be down, and Reapit’s Suzanna Mavity jumped into action and tried to think of the best possible ways we could support Dom, and the Huntingdon’s Disease Association, in the most effective and amusing ways possible. Our target is to raise £50,000 for the charity.

To this end she felt that the funniest and easiest way to raise money was for me to do some exercise so she has created the Do It For Dom page.

There will be a number of events but primarily a climb up Snowdon in September.

Reapit like many businesses will be throwing their support behind this charity but to illustrate this is no time for petty squabbles, our amazing competitors LetMC have been incredibly supportive with Amy Hansen being an absolute legend supporting on the marketing side of things.

Likewise Trevor Youens of Qube stood up at the ESTAs a few weeks back to pledge his support.

There are any number of ways you can help support the event, and remember this is to help an amazing national charity hopefully help end this horrific disease.

  • The first is we’d love to have any of you join us on the climb.
  • The second is you can donate via text. Text DIFD89 £10 to 70070. Of course we welcome any amount and you can just amend accordingly, and if most readers of EYE can just pay the price of a Starbucks coffee we’ll be flying.
  • And finally there are corporate packages available. I Am Sold, Fine & Country and the Guild were three of the first to sign up and again I think it’s wonderful that these companies are not just suppliers to the industry but genuine partners with it.

In what has genuinely been a heart-breaking demonstration of this industry pulling together, we received almost £50,000 in pledges before we’d even launched: the most incredible of all being failed Rugby star but legend of Van Mildert, Mr Christian Balshen, who donated £10,000.

The climb itself – other than the hilarity of watching me do some exercise – promises to be the most fantastic experience with some of the industry’s best known characters taking part.

So if you fancy joining the likes of Miles Shipside, Peter Knight, Iain Dowie and Alex Willis of GoTo, Simon Bradbury, Simon Woodcock (Robinson Michael Jackson), Kristian Stott (Andrew Grant), Peter Lawrence(Lawrence Rand), Graham Wilson (DDM), Nathan Emerson, Jon Cooke (Easy Property/F&C), Ben Ridgway (I Am Sold), Iain McKenzie (the Guild), Joe Robinson (Big Red from Stirling Ackroyd), Mark Bevan ( Reapit), Ricky Purdy (Dawsons), Simon & Sarah (The ESTA’s) – well, don’t hold back.

Inspirationally, Dom’s own team at FBM are fielding Tim Brace, Dewi Davies, Neil Finlay, Lindy Loveless, T P Beynon, P G Cattlin and Phil Davies.

If you fancy sponsoring any of this motley crew, go to the link below and choose your favourite, and please don’t all go for Mr Bradbury.

www.justgiving.com/companyteams/Doitfordom2018

If you’d like to get involved, then please drop SuzannaMavity@me.com a line or hit me on the normal places on social media.

www.facebook.com/doitfordom2018