Relay For Life
Well the Relay for Life event was again held at Willinda Park, Greensborough for the third year. Once again the Rotary Club of Greensborough fielded a team that included Rotarians, family, friends and a healthy spread of Rotaractors that came and relayed well into the night. The Rotary Club of Greensborough is one of nine teams that has now participated at each of these events since it first started in 2009, known originally as the Greensborough Relay for Life. Today it is the Diamond Valley Relay for Life and the event has grown enormously since eleven (11) teams formed the first event and raised just under $20,000.
This year's event has grown yet again, with 34 teams and over 850 people participating to raise a staggering $107,000 for Cancer Research.
Last year 24 teams consisting of 354 participants raised over $52,000. This event has clearly grown and will continue to grow.
The Rotary Club of Greensborough itself raised over $1500 and my thanks go out to those Rotarians who dug deep to help build our contribution and particularly our own former Rotarian Cheryl-Lee Carter with an impressive $750. Our role (I feel) has always been to help grow the event rather than fund raising and in terms of that we can say the event is now a local success.
Seven of our own Rotarians (Bill Carter, Mark Leverett, George Lim, Jim Conway, Michael Loy, Martyn Thompson and Joy Ferguson, helped to form our team and three others (Ray Davies, Paul Roast and Connie D'Amore) were in other teams.
We didn't make use of a Shelter Box tent this year and our site was one of the smaller ones, but Alan Jones from the Rotary Club of Diamond Creek has promised a tent for next year if we choose to field a side again? I certainly encourage Rotarians and family to participate in this event.
My thanks again goes out to the Rotaractors and particularly their President Sean Ingram, who rallied his troops and came in force to help keep our team relaying. I hope next year they see this as something they may choose to take on as an event for Fellowship and to raise funds for a worthy cause.
Martyn Thompson