A new day, a new total.

Monday mornings, gotta hate them. First day back at work usually after a fun weekend, having to drag yourself out of bed is a chore and for me usually filled with a list buzzing in my head of what I didn’t achieve over the weekend. This Monday is different, I knew I would be able to come into work and update my Cheshire Charity Challenge total, yipppppeee! An achievement Yes! Feels like I haven’t updated it for a while and this morning, I get to update it by a great £402! This brings my total so far to £3702.17, not too shabby! I may get to this £10,000 sooner than I think, a life time I have set myself to do this, maybe I could change it before I am 30 (hum... this is only 9 months away, maybe that is not such a good idea haha!), 35 a bit more realistic J

The £402 has been raised through 2 things, 1 the great Riverside Charity Pub Quiz Part 2 and the help from a wonderful friend of mine Jo Sutcliffe.  A while ago Jo asked if there was anything she could do to help me raise money, I find this a hard question to answer, come to my events is the main one really – I don’t like to expect anyone to take time out to raise money for something I have set to do, why should they? Everyone has a busy life, their own priorities, their own charities or reasons to raise money. However as seen by other events; my friends triathlon, my sisters ½ marathon, other people want to get involved. I am not going to say no, anything to raise money for Macmillan and Myeloma UK, is fantastic. Some time later Jo text and suggested she did a bake sale at her work, I thought this sounded fantastic and would does she need any help. Everything went quiet for a while,  Jo has been renovating a house, plays a lot of sport and been supporting her folks at home whilst they’ve not been very well, so I understood that things must have gotten busy. A surprise text out of the blue, Jo had done the bake sale and raised over £100 in the process, AMAZING! I was so touched, knowing how BUSY Jo is, the fact she’d taken the time out to arrange this and put the proceeds to the charity, really means a lot. Jo, thank you. xxxx

So, to the pub quiz part 2! After the success of the last pub quiz I had been asked a number of times by various people would I be running another one, I kept thinking about it and was going to do a summer one, but before I knew it the summer was coming to an end! How! I had started organising Good Vibrations and the initial date was for the 10^th November, however one of the main attractions couldn’t play this date and it looked like we weren’t going to get a date in the diary until the New Year. I couldn’t wait that long to do another event, so figured as I was already free on the 10^th November, well I may as well replace it with another Pub Quiz!

I decided with everything that was going on with Good Vibrations to keep this one a bit more low key and stripped it back to the basics of cake, chutneys and a good old fashioned pub quiz. I figured although the raffle was probably one of the big earners last time, the time it took to get all the raffle prizes and then go round with all the thank you cards, was something not to add on to my already hectic schedule. I therefore found that actually, the run up to the pub quiz was okay! A lot less lists that last time! I had a quiz master; I just needed questions, cakes and chutneys ... easy!  The weeks ticked on by, I had most the questions, but not all, posters had been put up in the pub and a facebook invite went out. Off the back of this the lovely Tommy and Zac, Savills and Spoilt for Choice all donated a prize, which went into the hamper of goodies for the pub quiz winners.  Thank you!

About 10 days before I started stepping up, sorting out chutneys, planning which cakes to make and sorting out the answer sheets. The Friday night before the quiz my lovely ladies, Tara, Amy and Charlie came round and helped me make the remaining chutneys (I couldn’t face chopping any more onions!), and an abundance of cakes. You could tell we’d all been eating the cake mix; interesting dances with cake making instruments ensued. Photos will follow! My other lovely friend Gabi also bought over a tray of cakes to add to the mix, we had plenty to sell!

The day of the quiz, was calm, went to the Riverside and Chris helped me set up the room, it looked lovely, we had balloons and flowers in red and white for Dad and then the cakes were all in tins ready to be revealed in the evening.

The night came and went in a bit of a blur, the room was full, all the chairs taken, all the cakes AND all the chutneys sold! Will, Mr Quiz Master, was fantastic, I had rollergirls there, my family from Donny came over, my lovely Sheffield friends and old work colleagues all came down to enjoy the fun.  Team Wieners were the winners, followed closely by the Mr Menace and his Rollergirlz, who all enjoyed there prizes.  Everyone filtered out the room and I sat down for a well deserved drink whilst counting the coins we’d collected throughout the evening. £290, not bad for pub quiz. In fact I would say it was bloody brilliant!

Thank you to all those involved in the cake making, chutney making, jar supplies, the Riverside for the venue, Tommy and Zac, Savills, Spoilt for Choice and Flora for the prizes. Also a big thank you to those who made it down to the pub quiz and joined in the fun, without each of you, well we wouldn’t have raised any money! Esp you lovely rollergirls and boys, who had about 4 different events to fit in, in one night and still managed to squeeze the pub quiz in.  Here’s to the next one, roll on 2013!