Rotary Fun Day June 2008

June 15th was the "Rotary Fun Day". The fun day, held at the County showground at Detling, near Maidstone, was organised as a major event by our district (1120) to achieve several things. Firstly, to enable clubs to attend and raise funds for their own chosen charities. Secondly to enable the district to promote Rotary itself and grow rotary membership.

The fun day was a huge event, with over 8,000 visitors expected of. Along side the fun fair district had organised a parachuting display, a World War 2 Spitfire flypast and many other things.

Our task, even as the baby club amongst the many long established Rotary clubs of the area, was to join in and raise funds for our chosen good cause. The cause chosen was "Odyssey" http://www.odyssey.org.uk/. Odyssey is a charity which enhances the quality of life for people with cancer through imaginative programmes of challenging and dramatic activities using the outdoors.. We had another aim too, to have as many of our club members attend and take part in the running of our stand.

What activity could we do at such short notice? We had two plans. The traditional "splat the rat", run in such a way as to guarantee the children would always win a lollypop. Then, the focal point, two WII machines, two WII-Fit boards and two large projector screens.

The WII, for those who haven't come across it yet, is a games console for the home. The controllers use motion sensors so interacting with the game is no longer a case of just pushing buttons, you have to move your whole body to make your virtual character do what you want. As you can see from the photos, our stand became very busy! Many people queued and paid for several goes in order to win one of two iPod MP3 players donated by Apple Computer specialist Seviceweb Ltd. Other players, shown in the photos, included the Mayor of Maidstone, Cllr Denise Joy, Darth Vader, District Governor Dennis Spiller, Spider Man, A group of Cheerleaders, and many more fun day visitors, all of whom span their hips and moved their bodies in an effort to win an iPod or just have fun.

All in all the day was a huge success, over half our club members were able to join in and we raised £163 for Odyssey, our chosen charity.