We did it!

Ok...
So, we did a bunch of other stuff before hand, getting ready and raising money - you can read about some of these back a the main events page.

But most importantly of all... Sight Savers International is now £5048 better off.

Have a read of our fun on the actual challenge, and do enjoy the pictures.

Phew.

Rotary Bowling

The idea behind this event was simple. There's a surprising number of Rotary clubs in the area, and Deben Rotaract have met up with several of them on various occasions. Unfortunately, these occasions are either presentations at their club meetings, or semi-formal charter nights. So we thought it'd be a great idea to get some people from as many of the clubs together for a bit of a social evening. A chance to swap ideas, meet new friends, and while we're about it, let's have a raffle and raise a bit of cash for the Sight Savers Mountain Challenge fund.

As a very subtle way of introducing the subject of Sight Savers, we brought a bunch of blindfolds (well, pillow cases) along, and on the 5th ball made everyone bowl blind. We at Deben Rotaract pride ourselves on our subtleness.

About 15 Rotarians, from three different clubs came along. And we raised around £60 from the evening. Not bad seeing as we'd said that fundraising wasn't the main aim of the evening.

The winner was Martin Westlake from the Ipswich East club. His score (294 over two games) probably helped his club to win the highest scoring club award. Thanks to all those who came, from the Ipswich East, Woodbridge and Felixstowe Languard clubs.

Walking in the Lakes

With four of the team at the RGBI conference in the Lake District, it seemed too good an opportunity to miss for the others to drive on over and for the whole team to spend a few days training on the mountains. All the walkers made it - Alan, Alastair, Andrew, Claire, Mark (reserve walker), Michelle and Pete (driver Ian got in some practice driving at home) and we got over several mountains, including Gridesdale Pike and Helvellyn.

After three days of walking up, down and around mountains, everyone felt a little happier that they'd managed to try out most of the kit, had been on the route planned for Helvellyn - handy, as it's the one we'll be doing in the dark in a couple of months.

If nothing else it proved that some of us weren't as completely unfit as we'd thought.

Check out the pictures and writeup (coming soon).

The RGBI Conference

(A few backdated blog entries... - sorry for the delay)

The annual Rotaract conference is always a lot of fun, with many and varied things going on. There's also a few presentations, which are usually quite good in their own right. This year, Deben Rotaract was presenting. Claire and Michelle gave a short talk about the Rotary Mountain Challenge and the Rotaract entry. This must have gone down quite well as we collected about £100 afterwards. Thanks to all those who were there.

Several people from various clubs came up afterwards and said they'd do what they could to raise some money for the project. Excellent news. A couple were also interested in 'Deben on Tour' - where we go along, run an event for their club, and they donate some cash. Stay tuned for more on this. Keith and Claire Mercer from Rushden Rotaract suggested a modification to the Tour plan, where we run a joint event for other Rotary and Rotaract clubs. Stay tuned for this too…

The conference was an excellent weekend, up in the Lake District. See the various pictures, and read the Deben writeup.

Up in the Lake District… well, while there, wouldn't it be a good idea to spend a few days walking...