Marie Curie Collection at Heathrow T5 March 2017

Friday March 10th 2017

Rotary Club of Burnham Beeches & Friends collect for Marie Curie at Heathrow Terminal 5

It was an early start for Rotarians Becky Whitlock and OIC Gareth Vest at Heathrow Terminal 5 at 06.00 hrs to set up but they were soon joined by Rtns Nick Teale, Claire Popple, Tony Jones and Michael’s Mills, Murphy and Adigun.  Once we had established base camp and been joined by our escorts from Heathrow the first shift was dispatched to their collecting points at 06.30 hrs.  The Terminal was unusually quiet first thing which turned out to be a bit of a blessing for Nick Teale who had reportedly enjoyed a very sociable evening the night before at the Salt Hill Society dinner, (see pic of Nick collecting whilst having a sneaky coffee!).

As the morning passed we were joined at 09.00 by Rtns Geoff Howard, Judith Foster, Brian Kay, Maureen Wheeler and her son in Law Neil who along with Michael Murphy staying on for a second shift formed the second collecting team.  I was joined at base by Rtn Paul Wheeler on restricted duties who was invaluable managing the cash as the first shift returned.

Shift 3 at 11.30 consisted of Rtns Ian Griffith, Michael Swain, Austin Smith, Rainer Struck and Denise and Philip Booroff (friends of George Chapman’s seconded in to boost our ranks).  Gareth also hit upon the idea of filling the very unpopular (and sweaty) role of dancing around the terminal in a daffodil costume by victimising Heathrow Interns who can’t really refuse!.

Shift 4 at 14.00 hrs saw the arrival of our second cripple Rtn Michael Holehouse to relieve Paul Wheeler on base duties along with Club President Ray Dance, George Chapman and his neighbours Ged and Pauline Dale to collect.  Upon arrival Mike’s first course of action was to pop off to find himself some lunch!

The final shift of the day at 16.30 hrs saw the return of Becky along-side Rtns Tom Scharff, the dream team of Keith Thomas and Ken Smith and Ray staying on for the double, working through the pain of his back injury caused by his enthusiastic golf swing.  Notably Tom decided to follow in the footsteps of his great French friend Rtn Alain Ponthieu in attempting to take a pocket knife through security!  The collecting fun ended at 19.30 and the base was cleared away and we were on our way home by 20.00hrs.

Throughout the day each shift was strengthened by volunteers from Marie Curie themselves and we had plenty of support from Heathrow, providing escorts, temporary airside passes and free parking, and as usual Travelex are doing a great job counting and exchanging the money for us.

In total we had:

22 RCBB Members on the day

6 RCBB Members did two of more shifts

2 Members brought extra support to help us out.

12 Marie Curie Volunteers

29 Heathrow Volunteers and Colleagues as escorts

4 Heathrow Graduates and Interns dressed up a daffodil.

The terminal seemed a bit quieter than normal, but hopefully we still had a worthwhile day, Travelex should have an outcome for us within a couple of weeks.  

 Rtn Gareth Vest, 'Commander in Chief'