East Midlands Charity Winter Ball
Fifty-five guests of all ages, both members and non-members, attended our winter ball at the Rutland Square Hotel in Nottingham on Saturday 17th February. Having paid for the entertainment from regional funds we were able to donate £5 from each ticket sale to charity, thus raising nearly £300 for Cancer Research UK. We had chosen this particular charity as one of our popular members, Charles Vermes, had died of the disease on this date last year. We were honoured that Charles' son and daughter-in-law travelled from Manchester to support the event.
We were also delighted that Iain Benson from Chapel-en-le-Frith had chosen to celebrate his 30th birthday with us. His girlfriend Elisa and I had arranged a surprise birthday cake which was presented to Iain after the meal. hough, as nobody had room for more food after an excellent dinner, the cake was not actually eaten until Sunday afternoon. Warming drinks accompanied by chocolate cake were most welcome after the guided walk.
Entertainment at the winter ball was provided by Mensan DJ Paul Davis and included some Ballroom, Latin American and Salsa dancing. This gave the growing group of Nottingham members who regularly attend dance lessons chance to show off!
After midnight the music turned to disco with those well-loved tunes of the Time Warp, Macarena and Saturday Night as well as a Locomotion around the function suite.
Some fun events were thrown into the evening with Iain and Elisa both winning designer sunglasses for best male and best female limbo dancer and Ann Tarper from Kent winning a digital camera for the best twister, though it was very close competition between Ann and Helen Krasner of Derbyshire. There was also a ticket draw for a bottle of champagne and this was won by Derby member John Whiteman.
Coupled with two days of events such as visits to Nottingham tourist attractions, an entertaining Blue Badge guided walk, a pub crawl and a treasure hunt the weekend was huge fun. Thanks must go to all the staff at the Rutland Square Hotel for their excellent service and to everyone who was able to attend the winter ball, especially those who travelled from beyond our region such as Southend, Hull, London and Ireland.
Maxine Bates