Ok, this is the third time I have typed this post up ….. it won’t be nearly as much fun this time around!

Firstly, a huge thankyou to everyone who attended – what a fantastic night – we thankyou all for your support and hope that you enjoyed the evening as much as we did. I was worried it might just have been the red wine talking but the texts and e-mails I have received yesterday and today indicate to me that it was an inspirational and enjoyable night.

There are so many thankyous that need to go out after an event like that, many months in the planning and hours of hard work but I will try to keep it quick – thankyou to the alcohol sponsors – CuB, Mt Toolleen winery and Henley Hill winery; and to the companies who donated items to make the raffle, auction, silent auction and prizes such a success – Crazy Johns, MasterFoods, John Sands, Crown Promenade, Aireys Inlet Getaway, Catering on the Move, GIANT bikes, Piping Hot, SweetAs, Bunnings, Prahran pool, Zoe Mou jewellery, Firrin by Chloe Elizabeth and all the others I have forgotten! For those of you who left with something – we hope you enjoy your spot prizes, raffle, bargain table and auction prizes.

Obviously a huge thankyou to our amazing guest speakers – Daniel and Robbo. Thankyou for donating your time, we hope you enjoyed the event as much as we enjoyed hearing you speak. Your openness and honesty were amazing and inspiring.

So many people helped out but the following people deserve special mention – without them there would have been no event: Anthony, Damien, Jo, Jacquie, Sparky, Pete and Ri.

Now that the thankyous are done – apologies next! Due to a slight technical difficulty with the presentations I did not get to meet and greet as you all arrived, nor to have a relaxing champagne with the canape’s – so to those of you who I did get to meet or chat to properly – sorry! For those of you who I was very much looking forward to meeting and then managed only a few short words before letting myself get distracted again – apologies! Hopefully we can all catchup again once we return from the U.S. I had grand visions of spending the night with lots of time to chat and catchup but probably it was best that you got to listen to the guest speakers instead – much more coherent and a lot more interesting! Also, apologies for earth hour! We did a fair bit of planning and had purchased the candles on your table with grand plans of making note of earth hour at 8:30, turning down the lights and dining by candle-light but got so interested in the guest speakers that this did not happen! Even though we missed the chance to formally recognise this – the lights were down, your lights were off at home and we did eat by candle-light so we did do a little bit to help.

I have alluded above to a number of e-mails and texts which have come thru over the last couple of days but I think that this snippet from one encapsulates the general feeling of them all:
“Whilst I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night mate, your words of hope and determination are entrenched in the back of my head and this has given me impetus to make myself better at whatever I do in my life.”

“When I would have sat there and felt sorry for myself, you have accepted your cruel twist of fate and looked at the positives. How you do that is incomprehensible, but that’s why you will succeed in the future.”

The final banking has not yet been done but it looks as though there will be enough money to either fund the physio sessions at project walk or purchase a couple of pieces of equipment. It is so fantastic that instead of looking forlornly at equipment that will help Mike’s recovery, he can try it out and if it helps we can organise to bring it home – so thankyou very much

I cannot remember what I had included in the last 2 versions I did of this post (prior to losing them in the ether somewhere!) so I would like to finish up with wishing you all the best for the next 8 weeks while we are away – enjoy the break from us!! We will keep you up to date with at least one post a week. I won’t have Sparky around to help but will do my very best to make sure I include photos and video where possible – but I wouldn’t start holding your breath!

Enjoy April Fool’s Day and we look forward to seeing you all when we get back at the end of May.