NDLTC would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who made it to our Club Day and Karla Celebration on September 11th – and for making this special day the amazing success that it was! Thanks to everyone for coming along and getting involved, playing tennis, bringing food and cakes, remembering Karla, dancing and generally celebrating all the things that make our club the special place that it is.
The most magical moment was Thomas (Karla’s husband) winning 1st prize in the raffle, definitely that felt like Karla was right there with us at that point; and thank god for the beautiful weather as we didn’t have a back-up plan…
In total we will be donating £3000 to the fundraising to build a new sports area at Charter School in memory of Karla. This was from the raffle proceeds (we sold just over 1000 tickets, which is £2004) and from the profit made from the BBQ, cakes and bar over the day which totalled almost another £1000 which we’ve rounded up. I want to say a huge thank you to those that donated raffle prizes as we couldn’t have got near that total without your generosity.
Here is the link again to Karla’s fundraising page – this should take them to almost £10k once we’ve sent that over which is great news!
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/thecharterschool-northdulwich
I also want to thank everyone who helped out to make the day so successful:
· All of the families who entered Family Cup and made it a really fun competition
· Mark Rusher, Ian Hirst, Charlie Doyle and Andy Price for an epic BBQ shift and for doing all the BBQ shopping
· Mark and Gary for restocking the bar
· Mark for the compering and announcements throughout the day (including having to thank himself..)
· Peter and Matt for running all tennis related sessions including Family Cup
· Mike Almond for doing a long bar shift in the evening
· Jo Morris, Jo Morrison and Roman (they did a huge shift on the raffle stall in the blazing sun!), Linda Irwin, Laura Ansell and Kat Hayes, Zac Campbell, Kirsty Sanders for lots of general help
· Peter, Gary, Kirsty, George Anderson and Philippa Millward for organising the Karla memorial bench
· George for running the cake stall, with help from Sarah K
· Oleg for running the Table Tennis tournament (and for not winning it himself..!)
· Lisa M for the lovely yoga sessions
· Intersport for running the racket demo session
· Harry Collins for all his help sorting out the finances before and after the event
· Anna D for the DJ-ing and Gary for the music equipment
· The bands – Sam Pappon with Lend me the Twelve; Misha Fox with Brasstermind – both were brilliant
· Jack Davies for chopping tons of halloumi and loads of other kitchen help!
· All those who brought cakes and buffet food for the evening, these were all very impressive!
· All the people who cleaned up that night or the following day – I don’t know who all of you magical elves were but you’ll know who you are and it’s really appreciated
I’m sorry if I’ve missed anyone who deserved thanks, please do shout if so!
Here are the winners from the various events:
· Family Cup – Sanvi and Gourang Agrawal
· Fastest Serve – Jo Morris; Alex Frangos
· Skittles count – Lucie Kennedy
· Table Tennis tournament – singles – Anand Damodaran; doubles – Dave Hill and Gerry Howell
Raffle :
· 1st – Thomas Pappon (Karla’s husband; holiday cottage in Dartmouth, donated by Andy Price)
· 2nd – Ben Howell (2 x musical tickets, donated by Jack Galloway)
· 3rd – Bridget O’Shea (mother of Eimear Palmer; 3 x tennis lessons, donated by Peter)
· 4th – Rosie Windsor (mother of Wilfie who drew the raffle with us on stage! – 1x tennis lesson donated by Peter)
· 5th – Michael Freeston (£50 of books from Oneworld publishing, donated by Mark Rusher)
· 6th – Jonathan Higgs (racket regrip and restring donated by Matt)
Extra surprise raffle prizes !
· Cooking lesson donated by Ambra – Jack Davies
· Painting donated by Charlie Doyle, painted by his father who was president of the RA – Alex Frangos
· Yoga lesson donated by Lisa Muten – Anand Damodaran
Thank you all again for making this a very special day. I hope Karla would have been proud of us all 🙂
