On behalf of WRCS, a huge thank you to all the participants in our scale day on 25th October - to the competitors who entertained the crowds, the the huge number of visitors who came to enjoy our display and, most of all, to the club members and their families who volunteered their time to cook, cut grass, keep the toilets flushing, judge entrants, direct the competition, make signs, clear rubbish, sell badges, collect for charity, purchase extra food and drink, add up scores, arrange trophies, manage the traffic flow and carparks, etc etc.
There was an enormous effort, handling hundreds of visitors and contestants, and those (mostly) familiar faces handling the workload did a marvellous job. Please, though, we need more volunteers and more of our younger members to lend a hand next time. We don't need ideas, but we do need sleeves rolled up and hands getting dirty!
Anyway, our scale day was a huge success, raising a substantial four figure sum for the Royal Flying Doctor Service - our chosen charity for the event, and attracting a lot of interest from people keen to get into the hobby or to find a club where they can develop their skills.
The two recent articles in the Manly Daily attracted huge visitor numbers to the club - far more people than we have ever seen before, and far more than we thought might come, even in our wildest dreams. As a result, our two car parks were quickly filled, our parking team handled overflow parking in a couple of locations but, even so, our single lane entry road was in turmoil and we have to turn more than 200 vehicles back, with people parking on Morgans Road and walking a couple of kilometres to get to the field. To all the people that we turned back and that were inconvenienced as a result we'd like to apologise wholeheartedly. We did our best to cater for them but, in this case, the numbers were attending were so large that our parking and access limitations were our weakest link.
Above all, though, what a wonderful day and a great outcome for our donation to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Clive Weatherhead
