ReCyKle is a fundraiser and a competition run by The Leprosy Mission Queensland. It is a fundraiser in that the team members involved collect donations for the Mission and it is a "Static Bike Race" competition where all the teams ride (race) one of our 14 exercise bikes to see which team can ride the most kilometres in 60 minutes. ReCyKle is open to teams from Schools, Churches, Sporting Groups and Businesses.

Help people with leprosy break the cycle of desease, rejection, disability and poverty.

This year ReCyKle is aiming for its biggest year yet. With 2008 marking the '15th annual ReCyKle'.

This milestone event is set for the date of Saturday 31st of May 2008.

Swamp is a leading charity for this cause, donating merchandise for the prizes and competitors. 

If you want to learn more about ReCyKle visit www.leprosymission.org.au and follow the links to the ReCyKle page.

Swamp website www.swamp.com.au

Inspiration

The inspiration for Swamp is a childhood spent living in a suburb that was close to many parks, bushland areas, creeks, dumps, a tannery and a sludge pond. It is the inspiration for Swamp.
For me these places offered endless possibilities for adventure and fun. The creek offered eel fishing, swimming, rafting and catching tortoises.

The ponds also offered yabbies (crayfish) and on occasion quality goldfish for our own aquarium. The creek bank was where we had our cubby houses… and our private gathering place, the Mulberry Tree. Many a feast and fight of mulberries were had up in its branches.

The local dumps were a treasure trove, which we regularly scrounged through for the much sort after prize, a discarded bicycle frame or wheel. Once or twice these highly prized items were to be found there. The tannery offered an element of heart pumping danger. Once, we were chased by tannery workers wielding large knifes when we dared to trespass into their back paddock. Of course, the tannery also was the source of the smell that wafted into our homes, whenever the wind blew our direction or whenever it rained.

We once discovered the source of the smell one Saturday afternoon. It was a sludge pond, where the fat and by-product of the tanning process settled on its surface forming metres of a thick crust of green-brown foam… we were greatly impressed!!!

Little by little, as we grew up these places changed.

Our yabby pond was filled in to make way for an industrial shed. The tannery closed down. The ponds are gone and today the creek is a concrete channel. The rough bushland is now neat with trim tree-lined bicycle ways. The parks where we flew and crashed many a model aircraft are still there and most importantly, so are the memories. Somewhere embedded in every Swamp cartoon strip, the things that inspired me in childhood, still show through. For instance, every fly head first in a cowpat, every time Ding nose-dives into a crumpled wreck, every time a dump rat discovers new treasure and every off-beat character. They all have their origins with a bunch of kids… knee-deep in the wonderful world I call Swamp!

website located at www.swamp.com.au