Wednesday 7 September 2011

99th collects for the Wirral branch of the MS Society at the Pyramids Shopping Centre, Birkenhead - 3rd September 2011.

The 99th was asked to support the Karen of the Wirral Branch of the MS Society at one of their local collections.  We have helped them out at the Cherry Tree Centre in Wallasey previously but this one was at the Pyramids Shopping Centre in Birkenhead.

No Craigster on this one as he was on his jollies so we set off from base at about 7:30 and arrived at the venue at about 09:10 to meet up with Colin, Eric and Simon. We were later joined by Paul and Mel with Jack, Lucy, Finn and Cora. We had two stormtroopers, two biker scouts, one Royal Guard, An Imperial Gunner, Sith Apprentice, Anakin Starfighter Pilot and one Jedi.
We were given the Management Centre's conference room as our base for the day and after meeting Karen we got ourselves changed and ready.  We were then with the public from about 10:00 until 4:00pm and we were very, very busy.  The people of Birkenhead were very keen on us and were very generous.  Some of them recognised us from the event at Spaceport on the 13th\14th August.  The amount collected is a fabulous £583.92!!! a huge thank you to all involved and all who contributed!!  
We even had one lady who wanted to have her photograph taken with us with her lying flat on the floor, one trooper pointing a gun at her head and two of us with a foot on her belly... that is exactly what she wanted.. and we gladly obliged for which she donated £10.  
She has since joined the 99th's Fan page on Facebook and has made the following collage.
Another person, gave us a £20 note and didn't even have his photo taken with us.
We broke for lunch in shifts and sadly, Paul and his family had to leave us then.  Colin changed into his Imperial Gunner costume for the afternoon and we were just as busy.  At times it was just a steady flow of punters wanting their photos.
A special mention has to be made of Eric, who was excellent crew for this event and provided all the photos for this blog as once, again, I did not get chance to take any... Thanks Eric!!! And to Simon for travelling from Wrexham.
A lovely happy event with great people and a reminder of all things good about trooping, including a nice cuppa and cake afterwards and the post troop photo xx