Hertfordshire Centre 50th rallies

The 50^th Celebration rally opened at 12 noon Friday with 99 families attending all ready to have a good time, with a full entertainments programme in place the fun started straight away. Tea, coffee and biscuit served in the booking office were everyone received their goodie bags.

In the evening we held a family disco with some chocolate surprises for all. Later in the evening the bacon butties stand did a roaring trade with members waiting to be served having a real good laugh with each other.

Saturday Entertainment in the Arena.

Saturday started off dull and damp but not wishing to allow the poor weather to dampen spirits, at 10 am both adults and juniors got stuck into the ‘It’s a knockout’ competition.

This competition consisted of a series of relay races involving cable reels, space hoppers and leaky buckets with lots of water, in addition to the races there were tests of dexterity with wooden blocks and quick wits with Connect-Four. The sports men & women were then tested with target football. Throughout all these games the teams fought tooth and nail against each other, with the minimum of cheating (most of which was done by the adults).

When this was over we were treated to the spectacle of the old-boys of the tug-of-war team (in uniform) giving a demonstration of the skills that served them so well. This demonstration was against a team of volunteers (a motley crew) and went very well until the rope (of dubious vintage) snapped, providing much mirth & merriment (you couldn’t have planned it).

The next attraction was the Water Wars contraption; this initially looked like a medieval torture machine. Eventually Len Denbigh showed that it was in fact a clever device for throwing water balloons your opposite number in the device. As you can imagine this was very popular with the young people (and those who hadn’t had their hair permed). The only problem seemed to be keeping up the supply of ammunition.

The afternoon began with some canine capers in the mutt run with the usual type of villainy here. At 2 pm we all gathered in the marquee for a street party with an excellent buffet served to us in fine style by the former Chairmen and their partners. As the last jelly and ice cream was being scoffed, the stage was taken by Indie band 9foldpunch who provided some excellent, if alternative, entertainment.

Meanwhile, outside the street party continued with entertainments in the ring such as plastic duck catching, guess the dolls' names, splat the rat and a treasure hunt to win a free night at a Club site (the lucky winner is going to Skeggy)!!! All the while this was going on, the young people were having a fine time at the water wars, enjoying being soaked despite the coolness of the afternoon.

Saturday Entertainment in the Big Marquee

With chairs carefully arranged so every one had a good view in the large marquee, those of us who had seen Mickey Bull before knew to sit away from the firing line of this quick witted entertainer, especially if you had a passing resemblance to Harry Potter! We sat at the very back as I had been singled out before at a New Year Rally. This year it was Ulla’s turn but she is a good sport and took it in her stride.

Woe betide if you took the risk of leaving your seat for any reason at all, Angela was chased out of the area and was lucky enough to escape unharmed.

Seriously, Mickey has a spectacular singing voice even at this venue, and he competed with the noisy straining metal struts of the “marquee” superbly and his sense of humour did not offend any of the family audience.

Talking of superb, the Youth Committee, led by Rachel who somehow had coerced all the willing under 18s into performing, gave a fantastic display of talent in the intermission portraying different films, the Child Snatcher, Crocodile Dundee, Tarzan and Jane also had small cameo roles.

But the starring roles have to go The Full Monty Team

A good evening was had by all.

Sunday Entertainment

At 7.30 on the Sunday morning we woke to the sounds of high winds, Malcolm Gillon looked out of the window and yelled that the booking office gazebo had blown over. We got dressed quickly and went out to rescue the tea urns and the bottled gas underneath it all. Very soon other people started to arrive and it was all hands on deck to take all three gazebos down before we lost the lot, what a rude awakening.

Andrew Heil launched the Rally Programme for 2009 at 10 a.m. in his awning and he was able to get a few people to put their names down to be Rally Officers and run next years Rallies, he is still looking for more volunteers.

At 10.30 we all went to watch the youth and children in the Soap-Box Derby to compete for the Bantay Trophy this was won by Andrew Flood & Dylan Harrison. This competition has been resurrected after a number of years and was well worth it some of the kids had never seen a soap-box before and after the competition spent the next couple of hours happily playing with them. These could have been auctioned a made a really fortune……

BBC Three Counties radio show came to broadcast live from the rally, interviewing members on the life with a caravan. They did talk to Sue Batchelor and Sandie Evans on the benefits of rallying, putting the Herts Centre on the map yet again..

At just past 12 o’clock the Marquee started to fill up with people, all waiting for the closing ceremony.

On the stage were the Chairman of the Herts County Council – Nigel Brook, Deputy Mayor of St.Albans and Husband – Cllr. Maxine Crawley, Roger Kirk from the Herts Air Ambulance, Sally Smythe from GT Towing, Hatfield, Tim Warner from Ken Brown Motors of Stevenage and of course our Chairman, Sandie Evans, they just fitted on the stage. At the side of the stage they were joined by a number of Past Chairmen – Charles & Joyce Page, Dorothy Hankin with her son Michael on behalf of Brian, Brian & Sheila Sampson, Des & Sandra Dann, Ken & Evelyn Barry, Peter & Helen Keenan, Margaret & Brian Pettinger, Phil & Sue Batchelor and Ray & Ulla Daniels – a fine display of Chairmen.

Our Chairman Sandie Evans opened the Ceremony and then we had a speech from Nigel Brook, followed by a speech from Cllr. Maxine Crawley who also gave her thanks on behalf of the Herts Air Ambulance. After the speeches all the past Chairmen went to the front of the stage where the Celebration Birthday Cakes were and all held a knife for the cutting of the cake and a Toast to the Centre’s future. The three cheers were enormous, everybody was proud to be associated with the Hertfordshire Centre.

We all then gathered outside for the Grand Balloon Race all the Chairmen held the net and then at the countdown let the net open and a great cascade of blue and yellow balloons flew up into the sky, it was beautiful a very emotional moment.

To finish the day the Grand Raffle was drawn there were a number of prizes that had been kindly donated by various companies and members and it made a fine display. We were able to raise £300.00 for our centres charity, the Air Ambulance Appeal.

Well Done everyone, the letters, cards and e-mails that I have received had been so lovely with very kind words regarding the Centres future, lets hope the October Dinner Dance goes as well. Thank-you to everyone for making this rally successful.

Hi Sandie,

I’m not very often driven to write about many things, but this week-end put a lot of Centres to shame.

I have not enjoyed a Whole Rally for a long time, so on behalf of all the 3 families that attended your 50^th Celebration from North London Centre of the Caravan Club, I would like to thank you, your Committee and all the wonderful helpers you all made this weekend something special.

It is nice to see the Whole family being thought of and some of the Old things brought back into Centre FUN.

If we don’t invest in our future Ralliers we can’t look forward to a successful and continued future, I believe that you and your Team managed to push all the buttons for everybody.

Thanks again the Godfrey’s, Walker’s and of course our Brian (Uff)

See you again soon

Steve