Weymouth Veterans Festival, 2010

thumb_slingsby_weymouth10a Two Bears Enjoy Weymouth - or Two Grand Days Out

For the benefit of those who are easily confused, this was not a trip to the seaside but, instead, two days of hard work manning a holidays4heroes stall at the annual Weymouth Veterans Festival.
Glossing over the indignities suffered by Cpl Horsa on Friday evening, we start our story on Saturday morning. Whilst all was busy at Brat Towers [where many of the team were sleeping/camping], and with tea, coffee and bacon butties being guzzled, Shopgirl was suffering both a power cut and a traffic jam, proving the adage that no plan survives first contact.

Advance parties were sent ahead to Weymouth to meet Alfredo and find our site. As soon as Shopgirl and Slingsby arrived, we filled the norgie and headed speedily on our way. Soon we were setting up tables, chairs, gazebo, bunting, posters, stock and cash boxes. Leaflets and collecting tins were poised, Taff49 started exercising his ‘chugging charm', and the bears prepared for a nice relaxing day in the sunshine.

That expectation was foiled when Alfredo introduced them to Steve the Photographer. He seems to know everyone in Weymouth, and be able to persuade them all to have their photo taken with bears. All day we were back and forth, posing with aeroplanes, guns, bicycles, donkeys, children, military folk, retired military folks, cadets - you name it, we were photographed with it! Despite being sustained at lunchtime with some special honey sandwiches and an extra slice of cake, we were exhausted!

The afternoon was much more of the same - we bears rushing from photo to photo while the humans carried on leafletting, tin-rattling, selling and schmoozing. We were able to watch the Marines' invasion of the beach from a special vantage point, and have been invited to join them in a landing craft next year. Horsa was interviewed for local Radio, and both of us were interviewed for local TV news.

We found that children are particularly good at handing out leaflets (thank you to the Daxx and R14D children - sterling effort there!), and Shopgirl is very good at getting out of photographs before the shutter clicks so that bears get all the limelight.
We packed up just after tea, and went home with Shopgirl for a nice rest.

Sunday dawned overcast but with sunshine due later. The humans were a lot more organised, and had used chocolate cake to bribe the lovely gentlemen of the Parachute Regimental Association to save the space for us. Everyone knew what to do by now, so tables, gazebo, bunting and posters were soon rigged.

Leafletting, selling and rattling continued, with the addition of some rather fabulous stickers which YesItsMe had made. Taff49 developed several ways to accost small children with stickers, encouraging their parents to put something into his tin.
We bears were involved in a dizzy whirl of beach photos (complete with lobsters - not the worst job we've ever had), and photos with lots of lovely people. Humans and bears admired the parade. There were lots of standards, and marchers from the very young air, sea and army cadets to the very old veterans with more medals than we bears have ever seen, including the friendly Paras from the stall next door, who appreciated a slice of cake when they returned.

The highlight of our day was Slingsby meeting Simon Weston and finding out that Simon had heard of him!! Many thanks to Alfredo for organising that for us. Later on, Slingsby was honoured and proud to have his picture taken with a Chelsea Pensioner [Ed: That man is well known at HQ Bears!]

Thanks to the contacts of Steve, Alfredo and Taff we are booked for a lot of photo opportunities this Summer, including visits to the Weymouth Lifeboat, Tankfest, Weymouth Wildcats Speedway, the Coastguard Helicopter and Drag Racing. The Canary Society have offered the funds raised at their next two events to Holidays for Heroes. We're very pleased and grateful, but we didn't get the chance to ask whether they are on Twitter.

We packed up again at the end of a lovely day, and the humans were delighted to find they had raised a thousand pounds, which is enough to send two families to Spain for much-needed holidays.

Horsa and Slingsby would like to thank all the humans who made our lovely two days possible - Steve the Photographer (Crystal Clear Photography of Weymouth), Alfredo, Mick_sterbs, Shopgirl, Tasha, Taff49, Joker, Enigma, the Daxx family, the R14D family, Bovvy, Gremlin, Grownup_Rafbrat, her Offspring and his Girlfriend. A most generous, humorous and effective team!

Photographs

There are 2 photo galleries, due to the number involved. The first is related to the story. The second is mainly for the lovely people who had their photo taken with Slingsby. Please feel free to "click and drag' any photos you want to your computer desktop - Steve has waived copyright, and there's no charge either!