Party weekend!
Rushed off my feet from Friday night onwards. Went over to visit Paul and his family on Friday night and was overwhelmed at his positive attitude - he's a really happy guy and enjoys going out with his dog Button (who was trying to embarrass everyone with her antics with a teddy....I'll leave the rest to your imagination!). He's really appreciative of all the efforts being made to raise funds towards a specialist spa bath and continues to check on my progress via this blog.
Picked up the last few raffle prize donations on Saturday morning and posted all my route maps....I've had to trust Royal Mail Special Delivery to get them all to their correct destination as without these arriving, I'm going to be stuck!
Saturday night and it's party night....what a fantastic event it was. Most tickets were pre-sold but many friends turned up at the door of Sarah's huge 4-storey mansion near the Adventure Park at Hurn...we should have thought about charging for guided tours as these were really, really popular! Food and drink were in plentiful supply with many bringing some sort of edible or drinkable donation! Almost £400 of raffle tickets were sold on the night, everyone hoping to win one of the 45 or so prizes that had kindly been donated by various local businesses and individuals - all the kids (and some of the adults!) were eying up the 4' supersoft black teddy that I'd picked up just that morning from Sydenhams builders merchants (unsure why a DIY chain had a teddy to donate but it was gratefully received anyway!). I'd also put together 11 lots for the auction ranging from horseracing and keep-fit packages through to golf sessions and football memorabillia. Steve did a fantastic job on the tannoy and really got everyone involved. There were quite a few bidding battles going on, especially for the Chelsea FC football and rounds of golf at Dudsbury (Sarah's youngest son Max is an avid Chelsea fan and had his eye on the signed ball all night (excuse the pun!) - short of being on his knees and begging, Kevin couldn't ignore his son's puppy-dog eyes for too long and eventually won the coverted prize!).
The music room proved extremely popular and the sounds of drums and guitars continued well into the early hours of the morning. Sarah and Kevin's eldest son Will was playing requests on his guitar and I have no idea how little Max and Eddie managed to fall asleep on the sofa in the room next door whilst all this was going on!!
A fantastic total of £1,088.20 was raised through admission, raffle, auction and the odd donation which has now boosted the current total through the £5,000 barrier. There is £2,479.37 in the pot for Paul with £1,600.01 online (the extra penny came from Lilian who wanted to see her name at the top of the donation list!) and £1,015.00 offline for Cancer Research, making a huge running total of £5,094.38.
Just one working week to go now!
1 comment:
The "Going Away" Party was better than any of us could have wished for. Kevin finished painting the sitting room at 8.30 p.m. Friday, Carole and John came over for dinner to finalise arrangements over sausage casserole. They returned early Saturday lunchtime for the final set-up and guests started arriving at 7.00 p.m. We think Merritown House proved to be a special location for a special event. The drinks flowed, the conversation flowed, the food was fab (special thanks to Sam and Tim for supplying copious quantities of sandwiches, Isabel for the delicious 3 tier chocolate mousse, Sue for the sensational white chocolate cheesecake and Steve for the delicious Lemon Drizzle cake. Steve was brilliant as the raffle meister and auctioneer in the entrance hall, ably assisted by the kind loan of Malcolm's public speaking system, keeping control of the eager bidders. John was great on video duties but, apologies, Kevin and I failed to take a single photograph!! It was our pleasure to host the event and we would wish to extend very grateful thanks to all who attended, contributed to the raffle and raised the magnificent total on the night and also to those who subsequently donated despite being unable to attend! Paul - we'll do an event on Carole's return so you can see the location for yourself !!
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