The day began for Gill, Sheila from London, my Granddaughter Catherine and compulsory friend in tow (Rosie), with brilliant sunshine. Just after our fun day had just started it began to rain, but luckily only for about ten minutes and then out came the sun again (hooray!).
The Weary Traveller plan for this day throughout the year, and my sincere thanks go to Kathy the Licensee and her staff who raised £251.00. Lorraine and her team on the BBQ raised £175.00; and Kathy with the raffle raised an amazing £417.00. Thanks also to the auction man selling hampers, and Tony and the team with the bowling. The efforts of my Granddaughter Catherine and friend Rosie selling balloons; Sheila selling badges; and Rob Cott’s donation, brought the grand total raised to £1,168 – another record for the Weary Traveller! The Weary Traveller event is now in its 6th year and every year they have improved their total.
I also took the chance to have supporters of CRY at the Weary Traveller complete my last 32 postcards for the campaign to raise awareness amongst MPs.
As a piece of school homework, Roy’s Granddaughter Catherine wrote the following summary of the event
Raising money for a charity
About the charity
My chosen charity for this project was CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young), as in 1980, my Uncle Andrew died while playing football, at the age of 16, through a heart condition called Cardiomyopathy. There are 11 different types of Cardiomyopathy, Uncle Andrew’s was called Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy, which can be abbreviated to Hocom. Although he died in 1980, my grandparents, Mum and Aunts still grieve for him.
As eight people die every week from Cardiomyopathy, CRY are campaigning to get 14-35 year olds tested for the disease. This is because that is the age range most affected by it. I am tested for it every 3 years (after the age of 13 this increases to every year), as was my cousin Robert (age 24). My younger cousins Francesca (age 7), Morgan (age 5) and sister Phoebe (3 1/2) are due to start being tested when they are 8.
It is vital that if a younger sibling dies in a family, the brothers, sisters and parents (immediate family) are tested. If any of the family have also contracted it, say for example the father; it is again very important that their immediate families are tested for Cardiomyopathy.
CRY is now international, as a branch has been set up in Ireland, and a short while ago, Australia asked permission to set one up.
The event
Rosie Watts and I decided to do our fundraising event together, and as every year, on August Bank Holiday at The Weary Traveller, there is a Flat Green Bowling Competition. With a barbecue, raffle and balloon race, with all of the money going to CRY, we asked if we could run the balloon race (which my Uncle Tony is usually in charge of). Travel was no problem, as I go every year with my Nan, Granddad, Sheila (family friend also involved with CRY), and I am allowed to take a friend anyway.
We arrived at about half past one, and Rosie and I helped to put up some of my Granddad’s posters around the back walls of the pub. Then it was off to write the labels to go on the balloons. They had my Uncle Tony’s address on, for the balloons to be sent back. The balloons would cost £1 each, and the person who bought the balloon that went furthest won £10, and the person who sent it back won £10.
Five minutes into it, we had already sold five balloons, as Sue Smye (Helena’s – another one of our friends – mum), had given Rosie £5 beforehand. After writing a number of labels, Rosie decided that we should go and ask people if they would like a balloon, although after about ten minutes we stopped because we wanted to go and have something to eat. But while Rosie was allowed to go and buy herself a burger, I had to write more labels out!
When I had written out at least twenty more, Nan decided that I was allowed to eat my sandwiches and packet of crisps. My Auntie Julie, cousin Robert and his girlfriend Jo turned up just then, Auntie Julie giving me and Rosie a Mars Delight each!!
Then, all of a sudden, we were bombarded by children, all wanting balloons! Rosie and I took it in turns to blow up the balloons, and we let the younger children send their own balloons off. I was definitely the worst at tying the balloons up; I accidentally let go of the balloon, so that it flew around the bowling green.
All of a sudden, it began to rain, and we all huddled under the shelter, laughing at the poor fools playing bowls! Luckily for them, it stopped raining after a couple of minutes, only to start again a few seconds later.
After the rain, we went round selling the balloons again, but soon we found that nobody else wanted to buy one, many people mistaking us for the people selling raffle tickets! On our way back to let off the single balloon that we had managed to sell, three boys asked us for balloons, obviously hoping for freebies!
As we had failed to sell many more, Rosie and I gave up, and went off in search of a hotdog. Fortunately, nobody came to buy a balloon while we were eating, so we got to have a rest. When after five minutes, still no one had come for a balloon, we started playing volleyball with an inflatable football. But we soon stopped when it almost went over the fence!
Rosie and I bought a balloon each, and I bought Phoebe one as well. Granddad came up with an idea to sell some more balloons – selling them for 50p to keep. This got rid of a few, and some people wanted balloons to send off.
Our hundredth balloon went to Mollie, a little girl who had sent 3 balloons off altogether. She also bought a balloon to keep, and wrote her name and phone number on a tag, and sent it off. Her little brother Daniel didn’t want her to let go of it, so ran after it. As Robert had not seen this, he thought that she had let go of it by accident, so he reached up and grabbed it back down! It went in the end though!
Rosie and I went to see the auction, where someone paid £3 for a box of Quality Street! Someone also bought two huge multipacks of Doritos, and passed them around the children. When I had them, nobody would take them off me! Rosie was the only one who thought to look at the best before date, and we discovered that they were out of date! Needless to say, we didn’t eat any more after that.
By then it was half past seven, and we had to go because Rosie needed to be home by eight o’clock. We raised £142, but £20 was taken out (£10 for the person who sent back the winning balloon, and £10 for the person who bought it)Altogether, £1168 was raised, £417 of it was from the raffle!
