Saffery Champness Rotary Walk (7 June 2014)

Saffery Champness Rotary Walk 2014

This year's Walk, the seventeenth, which took place on 7th June, was the first for our new sponsors, Saffery Champness, and was another great success.

As you are well aware, it has been a strenuous year for the organising committee, with ITEX being bought out and a new sponsor stepping in and considerable changes within the organisation of the Walk (largely unseen) but nevertheless the day went very well. Jannine Birtwistle handled the Start admirably. On the day, rain overnight made early steps a bit tricky and although Mike Allisette at the Jerbourg checkpoint largely escaped it, the rain at breakfast at Le Gouffre was, I think, a first for us! Simon Wood, on his first time as Checkpoint Manager, with his team coped with the conditions extremely well, as did Steve Molnar, a non-Rotarian, who ran the barbequing as he has done for years.

However, after the clouds departed it was a gloriously sunny day. All went well around the Walk. Hannah Laidlow (of Rotary Guernesiais) had taken over as Checkpoint Manager at Bordeaux and did a really good job. Saffery Champness, as well as supporting the Chouet checkpoint, provided a new refreshment point (opposite their offices along Les Banques, about one mile from the Finish) where a party seemed to be going on much to the delight of the walkers!

Not unexpectedly, we had a lower turnout of walkers than in previous years although a surprising number came along to register on the morning. Eventually we had 436 entrants, 375 started and 317 completed the course, either in part or in its entirety.

Final figures for the sum raised are not yet available. However, we were expecting the Walk to be smaller and budgeted accordingly. I am pleased to say that (fingers crossed) we have raised the sum needed to satisfy the requirements of the nine charities we are supporting this year. Next year, when we are back to our normal timetable, we hope to be back up to the numbers and sums we have experienced in the past. 

This year, a firm called Race Nation, in Jersey, handled the registration, collection of registration fees and preparing and posting the walkers packs. Part of this process included adding a bar-code to the walkers numbers and they came over and ran the bar-code based checking system with a view to moving to electronic checking at the checkpoints. It seemed to work and we will be discussing its future use with them.

I would like to thank all Organising Committee members who worked so hard this year to overcome the difficulties we faced. Thank you, too, to all those who helped on the day. Further information can be found on the Walk's website, www.scrwalk.org.gg , and I would recommend you keep an eye on it for future developments.

This year, His Excellency the Lieutenant Governor has kindly offered Government House as the venue for our presentation evening when we will be distributing the proceeds from this years fund raising. This is scheduled for Tuesday 30th September at 1830hrs.