Dear fellow Pirates
It is with a strange mixture of elation, gratitude and exhaustion that I am writing to you all this morning. It was simply a wonderful day yesterday and every single member should hold their head up high, knowing that we can all be very proud of what our club managed to pull off yesterday.
First of all, Nestle did the most amazing things for us. The branding, their products, the ladies in micro mini dresses…they were all part and parcel of what made the day great.
Maverick, the events organising company hired by Nestle were also fantastic and did a HUGE amount of work, without them, the day would not have gone so well.
The club, Non and her ground staff, the bar staff, cleaners etc were simply so awesome, so willing, so able. Non, the race would not have happened without you and your staff. The highlight of my morning was arriving to a crisis scene of a leaking sewage pipe and before I could even grab my phone to call in the emergency, I watched one of the ground staff walk by me with a spade and pick and start digging to solve the problem J
To all the other sections who helped out on the day. You never ask us to help at your events, but we always call on you – and you respond willingly and give up hours and hours for us. How can one ever really thank you? Again, like with Non and her staff, we simply could not put on this race without you.
Then to my committee. I am seriously the most blessed chair to have such committed, willing, awesome committee members who serve the club well beyond the call of duty. All of them worked for months behind the scenes to ensure that the race went well, most committing time that they could have spent with their families, their jobs, their running…or just chilling…yet they didn’t, they spent it working on this race with absolutely no promise of anything in exchange – other than the thought that they will be doing it again for the 10k!
I would like to ask all members of Pirates to just take a minute of your time to thank Matthew Smith, Adrien Thoma, Colin Mitchley, Paul Vlaming, Sue McLaggan and Fabian Bryne.
Last but not least, to all the members out there who also worked so hard for so long to make things happen on race day. We had loads of you helping with pre entries and entries on the day – thank you – you were wonderful and enabled us to have close to 2000 pre entries and take in another 800 on the day. To the tog bag people who just simply arrived without a fuss, set up and just worked…you have no idea how much that helps. To ALL the people who worked like slaves on the water points, packing water into trucks, driving trucks and trailers, dropping off tables…the list is endless…and yet many of them (and others) also pitched up to help with the field as well – change the lanes – the swamp (!) – the length of the tunnels – erecting the gazebos – sorting dustbins….sorting the T shirt and chocolates sections….again the list is endless.
We also had members out there on race day, dropping off cones, marshalling, picking up litter and dealing with traffic. None of which is easy, none of which constitutes the regular definition of fun, yet you all did it wonderfully. And to all the members out there who pointed out things we (me!) forgot, didn’t do etc etc (!) There is always something to learn. Thank you so much.
So, all in all, a HUGE big thank you from me to all of you. I appreciate all your efforts very very much and honestly there are not words that can describe what I feel in my heart for each and every one of you.
Tracey
