Manchester Christmas Party
In the end, the Manchester Christmas Party did not go ahead. However, instead the Association organised a trip to the Lowry Theatre to see a pantomime. A great time was had by all.
Street Collections
A collection organised by the Alder Hey branch on the streets of Ormskirk raised £150. Two collections in Liverpool in December raised over £1300 and another collection is planned for Saturday 12th February.
Beerwalk
The final count from the 2004 Beerwalk is in. We raised £1064. If you’d like to take part on behalf of the Association in the 2005 Beerwalk, please get in touch.
Charity Shop
For one week in November, members of the Alder Hey branch ran a charity shop to raise funds for the Association.
Work started months before by advertising and collecting the donated items. The day arrived to prepare the shop in preparation for what we hoped to be a successful week. On Saturday we had a huge transit van fully loaded plus eight full car loads of saleable items. (We were amazed at the generosity of people). It took a team of 12 friends over five hours to unpack and display the goods.
On arrival at the shop on Monday morning (our first day) we were greeted by a queue of eager customers for the first of many bargains to be had. Even while opening the shop doors to get the volunteers in we were asked about prices for items which people could see on display. First to be sold was a rug. The shop is normally open 10-4 but due to demand we had to open 9-5! On Monday we had to close the doors twice due to the overwhelming number of customers who had turned up to see what bargains we had.
We had set a target of £1000 but we exceeded our expectations. In the first two days alone we took nearly £800 and although the remaining days weren’t as good we were more than pleased.
We had a lot of laughs on the way and met lots of lovely people. Our thanks go to everyone who donated and bought from our shop.
Val
Christmas Card Scheme
A big thank you to all who supported our Corporate Christmas Card scheme in 2004. We raised £159. Happy New Year and, again, thank you.
Rossendale Motorcycle Show
One rainy Sunday morning last September, around a dozen members of the Association joined Gill Hitchen as volunteer marshals at the Rossendale Valley Motor Bike Show.
We had been told to expect a lot of bikes but in the event ‘a lot’ was the greatest understatement I have come across in a long time. Thousands of bikes turned up (in spite of the rain) from all parts of the North West and far beyond. Our group was based at Winfields car park at Haslingdon. Our role to make sure the ride-in to Rawtenstall assembled safely before setting off en masse. In the event, the parade into Rawtenstall took nearly 25 minutes to pass – an awful lot of bikes.
Police estimated 50,000 people packed into Rawtenstall itself and had a great time enjoying in the afternoon sunshine all the bands, displays, stalls and events. If you want a much more comprehensive description of aspects of the Show, their website ‘www.rossendale-bikeshow.co.uk’ is well worth a look.