Well what a night!

The first ever Frome Fling went down a treat with tickets sold out and over 240 people crammed into the Cheese & Grain for an evening of lush food, great music and ceilidh dancing (oh…and a couple of drinks).

With so many people to feed (and a broken rice heater) the Balmoral Catering Co did a great job making sure that no-one went hungry. VJ Ultra did a great job too, complementing the Ceilidh with a visual treat of tartan and MTB riding to keep all the riders happy.

The evening was an excuse for a party but also an opportunity to raise some funds for the Black Canon Collective, and our chosen charity re-cycle who provide refurbished bikes to people in africa. The following people/organisations made donations to the raffle…

Sainsburys – Chocolates
Homebase – Crackers
Marks and Spencers - Christmas cake
Millers - Voucher
Longleat – One adult pass to the grounds
Colin Nisbet – Bottle of malt whisky
Abernathy’s – 6 x £5 vouchers
Simply Pearls – Necklace
Herbs on the Hill – Soap collection
Amica – Body wash & lotion
AVC – £45 bike service, and a £15 voucher
Halfords – £10 voucher
Marjory Hatvany – Bicycle horn, basket & some groceries.
Black Canon Collective – 2 x BCC T shirts
Cobble Wobble – 2010 Cobble Wobble Ltd edition poster and T shirt

…which sold out a book of 1000 tickets (at £1 for strip of 5 tickets) raising £200 for re-cycle!

Thanks to Colin Nisbet (the brother of organiser Marjory Hatvany) who did the “MC” stuff for the evening, he looked very nice in his full dress kilt but I heard that he had it on back to front all evening!

Also, thanks to Marjory’s niece Lindsey and Colin’s wife Hilary Nisbet who did loads of the flower arranging. Poor Lindsey had torn ligaments on Thurs by standing on a hockey ball and was stuck with crutches and sitting down all night – poor girl.

The Little Biggar Band were without a doubt the highlight of the evening, having travelled down especially to treat us all to their authentic Ceilidh music. Most of the band drove back up to Scotland on Sunday morning and beat the snow, but Linda (the bass player) didn’t get home until Monday night; Edinburgh airport was closed on Sunday, so she ended up hiring a car and having to drive up and through a blizzard on Monday!!

Big thanks to Rachael Campbell Smith for designing the poster, to Poppy Waterhouse and Leah Hamilton who sold raffle tickets, to Live2ride and the Cheese & grain for selling tickets and to all those who helped set up and pack away.

Most of all though a massive thank you to marjory Hatvany who lovingly organised the whole thing and did a brilliant job!

Thanks finally to everyone who came and took part, with the first event being such a success we’re keen to hold the Frome Fling every year so look out for details of the 2011 event around November time…

(Check out the video below)

As most of you will probably know a group of us from the club will be attending the Megavalanche in l’Alpe d’Huez, France this summer. This is a mass downhill race held high up in the Alps competing against hundreds of other riders – sounds like fun!

If that wasn’t enough I thought that it would be a fantastic opportunity to raise money for charity as well. The charity that I – and we as a club – have chosen to raise money for is Re~Cycle who ship unwanted, second-hand bicycles to Africa for the people there to use.

The reason I feel strongly about this is that the work that Re~Cycle does helps to empower people by providing them with transport that is low-cost and easy to maintain, and this gives them the chance to raise themselves out of poverty – all through something as simple as a bicycle.

It goes without saying that all of you reading this love your bikes (maybe a little bit too much!) and the sense of freedom that they can give us, so by competing in the Megavalanche we are using the thing that we get so much enjoyment from to give something back and make a difference to someone’s life. We get to use our bikes for fun but for some people what a bike actually means to them is the difference between spending half a day collecting water going by foot – or – a considerably reduced journey by two wheels. Or it can mean the difference between not going to school – or – being able to go and get an education with all the benefits that entails. I think you get the idea!

So how can you help? Well I have set up a JustGiving page, this is a really easy way to donate money to Re~Cycle and they give a 100% of the money to the charity plus Gift Aid. Please take the time to visit the page and make a donation.

http://www.justgiving.com/megavalanche2010

I’ve set the bar high with a target of £1000! However I think that you will all agree that this is a worthy cause and there should be no limit set on ambition. So dig deep, raid the piggy bank, look behind the sofa for those pounds and pence, make a donation and do something amazing!

Thank you for your support and generosity.