Light the Night

Today, the 8th October we had the first ever Leukaemia Foundation Light The Night walk. I posted earlier about how I was one of the volunteers working with the local PR Officer and Fundraiser to put this event on. It was a huge amount of work and a great success. we have been on a high, albiet an exhausted one, ever since.
KISA took 2 days off work to help too. He was the balloon blower upper on the night. He also provided muscle power for the set up and pack down. There were 400 balloons, with a gizmo inside that lights up, and has a one way valve into the balloon. They are hard to blow up with your mouth without popping out an eye. So we got him one of these babies. It has a little gun thing at the end which blew up each balloon in 2 seconds flat.
We started blowing up balloons and bagging them about 2 hours before the event. Next year we will ask for a bigger tent! We had done only a few by this stage and were already running out of room.
The Lions Club ran a BBQ during the event. One of the ladies working this stall in the evening was the celebrant who married us 8 years ago.

This is Tireless Tina, who set up the gift bags and paperwork stuff in the admin tents.

And this is the stage that KISA built. When the big burly State Emergency Service guys came to dismantle this after the event, they grumbled that the knobs were done up too tight. KISA can't help being such a strong manly guy!!

Here are KISA and Mrs M who organised the event. She is a very clever lady. Very good at what she does, I am learning a lot from her.

As the sun went down, it all started to look very good. Here is the memory tent. In there is a large notice board where people could post messages of support for those fighting a blood cancer or survivors or in memory of those who have passed away. The stall was staffed by a couple of counsellors as there were a few tears shed on the night.

This is one of the singers we lined up. Charlotte was wonderful, she is 16 years old and had a CD released in the US the day before our event. We were very lucky to get her. The act we had lined up got the chickenpox a couple of days before the event and Charlotte was home for a few days promoting her album. We also had a very talented 11 year old and The Harmonics perform. The local radio breakfast show annoucer MC'ed the event and we had 4 speakers before the walk set off at 7pm.

This is a shot of the crowd as the balloons started to glow as the light faded. We got busy at the tent after this so I didn't get any pictures of the speeches or the actual walk. KISA will digitise the news clip from the TV and we will add it later so check back.

As it became obvious that the event would be a big success we all started to relax a bit..

A&P and Godzilla came down to walk with KISA and I to remember Jess. I really appreciated their support. It was quite a sight to see the bobbing light of 200 or so blue, gold and white lighted from within balloons in the darkness as we walked the 2km walking track around the gooseponds. The lady who came from Brisbane office to speak and enjoy our event said she thought it had a great atmosphere.

At about 8pm we started to pack everything up and load it into utes etc. After KISA and I returned all the hire equipment the next morning, we collapsed our sunburnt aching bodies on the couch and didn't move much for the rest of the day. Lucky it is only once a year! Here is a video clip of the news item that appeared on the TV the next evening..