Well the hangover has abated, we’ve caught up on sleep, there’s still a mountain of leftover food to eat, and the embarrassing photos are finding their way on to the internet!
All that is the boring stuff though, the great news is that it raised a hefty £682.26!!! I cannot thank enough each and every single person who turned up and then dug deep to donate loads to the ticket price and the spare change at the bar and DJ request buckets!
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However, the real highlight of the night was the Chinese auction. We had some great prizes, namely;
- 6 premier tickets (worth £120) to use at the fantastic Wolverhampton Races, kindly donated by Wolverhampton Racecourse and Mr Andy Cooper!
- 2 tickets for the cracking experience Severn Valley Railway, kindly donated by Nigel and Leanne from the Firs at Codsall.
- Wine and chocolates kindly donated by Mike and Lorraine Poxon, who also donated a fancy dress prize! (Mike raised a fantastic £7,000 for Enduro Africa 2009!)
- 4 Canvas prints converted from photos taken of Lions, Elephants and a baby Zebra in Botswana 2008, donated by Ian Danbury photography.
The other highlight (for fundraising, but lowlight for me), was the live auction of Ian doing a day on the bike in South Africa in drag / costume of choice by the winning bidder!
I stepped back as Mr Ben Gamble of Cuttlestones Auctioneers and Valuers presided over a (much heckled and frantic!) bidding, which was finally won by a cartel of vindictive people wanting to make me suffer! So for a brilliant £100 winning bid, Lisa and L, Trudie and Simon, Si and Kim, Amy and Al, Nikki and Andy are now deliberating on how much humiliation they can cause me. Chaps if you’ve had any ideas already stick some comments on this post please!
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The efforts of the fancy dressers was brilliant too, as the pictures page shows.
The kids look fantastic, and too be honest I’d like to have given prizes to loads more people. To name a few of the best though, Kevin Steadman was by far the funniest full blown animal as was Alfie Cooper – still laughing at your brilliant efforts now, especially using grand dad’s sock for a trunk!
Lisa zip tying fruit to her head, Andy wearing a latex outfit all night, Trudie finding a crocodile top that fitted a 7 month pregnant bulge, Penny (for putting up with Ben’s bare legs), Nicky for her hours of threading beads onto a grass skirt, Si for making a man size cardboard cut out of Africa and Nikki wearing an old (used!) bath mat round her head were all fantastic too.
All the safari rangers, zebras, leopards and hunters looked awesome, as did all the Enduro Africa and Motocross riders especially those wearing full body armour underneath! However the prizes went to:
- 3rd – Natalie.
- 2nd – (Joint as they looked like tribesmen brothers who had travelled hundreds of miles to make this party) – Andy and Mark.
- 1st – Barren Samedi (Ryan), not just for the make up that still hasn’t washed off, but the fact that he was wearing a pair of his Mum’s tights….
So firstly a massive thank you again to everyone who turned up, travelled and made a BIG difference to filling the room as well as donating so generously to my fundraising campaign.
Finally, a huge thank you to Carole, Trudie, Lisa (who outsourced her desserts!), Kevin, Lynn, Lucy and Nigel and Leanne for all their help with food preparation, lending projectors, setting the room up and for buying and fetching things to help me. Biggest thank you though is to Nicky for all of her amazing efforts with food, rooms, prizes, auction help, looking great and chivvying me up when it looked like we might not even be able to run the event! (Although mostly for falling on her arse and walking into the fence at the end of the night!!!)
Cheers everyone, we couldn’t have done it without you, and you chaps making over 680 smackers should feel very proud indeed!!!
Ian 
Ps – I’ve just done all the sums and updated the thermometer – I’ve now hit £3,382!!! Thanks so so much…
Feb 28 2010
