The 99th Garrison attends LPUK's First Party with Warwick Davis.
The 99th was asked to attend a party to celebrate the LPUK - a new charity set up by Warwick Davis to help little people and their families. This was their first annual birthday party at the De Vere Hotel in Dudley. We were supported by our good friends the Mint Imperials.
We were asked to be ready to party by about 4:00pm so it was a leisurely journey down to Dudley courtesy of Dave who kindly offered me a lift on this occasion. As I'd decided to do Memah at this event, we set off at about 12:00 noon so that I wouldn't have to rush to get ready! We needn't have worried as we got there in plenty of time and we were delayed in joining the party anyway as they weren't quite ready for us. We also seemed to be the only troopers who had the correct postcode and didn't get lost on the way... everybody else had got lost to varying degrees!
We were joined by Craig, Ken Paul, Darran, Jim, Gary and Alan and Stacey, Jake, Ken, Phil and Richard and its amazing how many troopers want the opportunity to help Lord Vader polish his helmet!
We were asked to make our entrance into the party at about 4:30. The delay was due to problems in being able to play the Star Wars music for our entrance. The party was well on the way by then and the children were already suitably excited. We entered the room to appropriate Star Wars theme music and then were on the stage for about half an hour posing for photos and mingling.
Everyone was lovely and the children were great. I had one little girl called Amy who according to her Dad is now a friend for life... she kept hold of my hand for most of the time and enjoyed telling me about a trip to Disneyland, Paris that she and her family were due to go on soon.
Once everyone had got their photos that they wanted we then had a group photo with all of the children on and one with Warwick as well.
We were then had a short break before going back into the hotel and mingling with the guests in the reception area again and Starbucks cafe which was on site. The children still followed us around though and thought that it was good fun to attack the troopers with their toy light sabres! I did have to ask them to do it a bit more gently a couple of times as they were getting carried away but they were well behaved and good fun!
We then de-kitted and had a bite to eat and something to drink before leaving at about 8:30pm and getting back home at about 10:00pm.
A huge thank you to the LPUK for inviting us to the party and to Jim, Craig, Ken, Paul, Darran, Gary [excellent crew as ever!], Alan and Dave from the 99th and to Stacey, Ken, Jake, Richard and Phil from the Mint Imperials. A classic line from Jake came at the end of the event when he was looking for his bag... only to realise that it was on his back! lol
