99th Collection for Dreamflight at The Arena Retail Park, Coventry - Sat 17th Sept 2011

The 99th was asked to help out one of my friends [Katie] at her collection for Dreamflight at the Arena Retail Park in Coventry.  See www.dreamflight.org

Me and Katie became good friends in 2009 when we both did Dreamflight together for the first time.... we were Dreamflight virgins!!  Its fair to say that the first time that you do Dreamflight as an escort you do feel a little bit like a rabbit in the headlamps as it can be very daunting and at times overwhelming but with the help and support of the other adults members of the Dolphin Group - particularly our group leader, Jo - 

we supported each other and together we got through it relatively unscathed and pre-warned should we ever be asked to do Dreamflight again.  

Fortunately, for me I did get asked back last year and had my second trip.  This year, its Katie that's going and not me.  Hope you have a great time Katie.... the second year is so much better!! Knowing what to expect helps a lot!!

Anyway, Katie set herself a target last year of raising £3500.00 for Dreamflight which is basically how much it costs for one child to go on the trip.  So far she has held a barn dance and nail evenings and took part in a zipwire event in Manchester and raised over £2000.  This was a much more quieter event for her to take part in!! no safety net required!

We set off from base at about 7:00am with the Craigster and got to Coventry for just after 09:00 where we met up with Katie and with Paul and his son, Rhys.  We were given the conference room in the management suite to get changed in and be our base for the day.  We got changed and then set up in the shopping centre.  Initially, we had been told that we would have to be in two separate groups and although we tried this for a while it was clear that we would have a greater impact as a group of one so Katie had a quiet word with security and they agreed to us standing as one group outside Carphone Warehouse.

The morning was fairly quiet but things picked up a little bit after lunch and we were kept fairly busy.  A photographer turned up from the Coventry Evening Telegraph so we may appear in that this coming week.  Katie was excellent crew for us as was Rhys and I believe that he took about 300 photos!!  Some of which are on here.. thanks Rhys!!

There was one little girl that made the day for us worthwhile.  She loved us all and came for a hug from each of us but was particularly taken by Lord Vader/Paul. She invited us to her birthday party.. but had just come out of hospital that day after having a fairly serious operation.  She was such a happy little girl though and made us all realize why we do what we do.  We were also able to suggest to her carer that she thinks about getting her nominated for Dreamflight as she would be an ideal candidate.

We also had one lady come up to us her knew all about Dreamflight as her son had been on the trip in 2008!!  This was amazing as my experience at collections for Dreamflight is that most people do not know Dreamflight or what it is about despite it being a national charity and to have someone come up to you who knows all about it is quite refreshing!  She had even been on the Dreamflight 25th anniversary event at Heathrow on the bank holiday weekend in August.

We trooped until about 4:00pm and then called it a day but not before a well earned visit to Starbucks for some well earned liquid refreshment and cake!!  We collected £203.65!!!  Thank you!!!!

A huge thank you to Katie for organising the event for us and buying our lunches and to Jim, Craig, Paul and to Rhys. for taking all the photos! They're brill ... thank you!!   A lovely day's troop and one of three that the 99th were attending that day across the UK in Coventry, Wrexham and Newcastle.... we rock!!!

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

99th Garrison goes to the American Classic Car Show - Northampton - 20 and 21st August 2011

The 99th Garrison and MK Garrison was asked to attend the American Classic Car show at the Billing Aquadome, Northamtpon on Saturday and Sunday 20th and 21st August 2011 to help with fund raising for Help For Heroes.  

We weren't able to do the Saturday but went along on the Sunday with Craig, leaving at about 08:45 and getting there at about 11:00am.  Ian and Marie had traveled down from the North East with Mark and Matthew and made a weekend of it renting a caravan on site for their stay.  On arrival at the site [Billing Aquadone is huge by the way!] we eventually found their caravan and located Paul who had traveled from our neck of the woods in Derbyshire. We got ready in the caravan with Jim and Ian crewing for us.  We then made our way through the park to the main arena where we were extremely popular and well cared for by the organizers.  We were also joined there by Stuart form the MK Garrison... thanks Stu!! 

Paul had brought his Lord Vader with him and made his appearance later with accompanying loud Lord Vader style breathing and music and we were then even more popular than we had been previously.  We posed for photos for a while and then went and posed by some of the fantastic classic cars as well... They were gleaming in the sun and we were somewhat hot and perspiring! ! Boy was it hot!!!  Yet another event where you're left thinking "one of the few days where I'm not at work and could be getting a tan if it were not for the fact that you're covered in white plastic!" but that's what its all about.... trooping in all weather with good friends and for worthy causes.

We took a break because of the heat after one circuit of the cars before going back out again before lunch and then stopping for a lunch break... all kindly provided by the organizers and much appreciated.  I have to say that I have never seen us all look so hot and sweaty as we did when we took our helmets off at lunch... especially poor Paul and Lord Vader... but Paul didn't complain once!  What a trooper!!!  We also met up with Gary from the MKG who had been there on Saturday in costume and had ended up dancing on stage - as a stormtrooper as part of the evening's entertainment! 

After lunch we posed for photos again and Ian got changed into his Darth Revan.  We were then briefed our next "performance" which involved us being driven back into the main stage area either in or on the back of an american pick up truck or walking at the front or at the back with a lady DJ/singer called Lynette dressed as Princess Leia.  She then entertained the crowd with a medley of songs such as "I will survive " , "Stand by your man" and "sometimes its hard to be a woman" with various of us being involved in each song... it was brilliant... and was videoed... I just hope that we can get hold of a copy.

We then took part in handing out the trophies to each of the winning cars and there were some beauts!!

The organizers were well impressed with the 99th and the MKG on both the Saturday and the Sunday and I know that an article is due to appear in their American Classic Car magazine as well. They could not thank us enough!

A huge thank you to Paul T for getting the event and to Jim, Craig, Ian, Marie, Matthew, Mark, Paul, Stuart and to Gary and all the other MK members who attended on the Saturday.  love ya!  .. this was what trooping is all about!!

99th Garrison goes to the Spaceport in Liverpool

The 99th Garrison was asked by Mersey Travel to support the Spaceport Centre in Liverpool at its Star Wars weekend on the 13th and 14th August 2011.  We agreed and invited another group along to assist called the Mint Imperials.  We had met them previously at the Star Wars Family Fun Day in Burnely in May... excellent costumes and their own hand made props to die for!

The weekend started at about 6:00am on Saturday morning when me, Jim and Craig had to get up to leave base to be at Liverpool for 08:30am.  The trouble was that we had that much stuff to take with all the costumes, garrison publicity material and overnight gear that we could not fit it all into one car and had to take both!

On arrival at the Spaceport Centre, we located the others and set to getting set up and organised.  There was the prop table to be organised and populated, banners to put up and props to be labelled and general catch up with troopers and introductions to new members, Paul and Eric.

The Mint Imperials worked quickly and efficiently and put up their amazing props and back drops before getting changed into their costumes, including a Boba Fett, Snow Trooper, Tie fighter Pilot, Boosch, Sand trooper and Royal Guard.

We then needed to be in costume for 10:30 when the centre opened to the public and I agreed to do Biker Scout in the morning and then Memah in the afternoon.  Once ready, I spent most of the morning near the entrance to the centre posing for photos with the Mint Imperials and Paul as Lord Vader.  I didn't have time to take any photos on this troop but thanks to others such as Eric, Nigel, Ian and Marie, we managed to get some cool photos including a few in the centre's worm hole... This is Colin in his Biker Scout.  

The event had been organised by the 99th's MLO [Paul] and through his involvement with the Walking With Giants Foundation, it had been arranged for members of the WWG Charity to come to the centre in the morning for a tour and a visit as part of their WWG annual convention. The group included members from USA.  I have to confess that when WWG party arrived, I was glad that I had my helmet on as there was a tear or two....  They had a really good time though and enjoyed their visit to the centre and seeing the Star Wars characters.

The weekend also included what I believe to a first for the 99th....  We were to provide Jedi workshops every hour on the hour for the visitors.  This took place in an theater/auditorium which seated 84 people and almost every workshop was full to capacity.  The workshops were run by Paul for Saturday and Craig did some on Sunday to give Paul's voice/throat a rest.  These little workshops were a huge success with the children loving the opportunity to ask Stormtoopers questions and given them orders to do things like dance and sing and do star jumps and of course, to try on stormtrooper Armour and play with light sabres.  They also loved the opportunity to buy photo cards of us and ask us for autographs.

The weekend was very successful for the Spacecentre who told us that they had about 750 visitors on the Saturday and about 850 on the Sunday when they would normally only get about 150 per day on a weekend.  They did pay pay our travel and hotel expenses though and our lunches so we were very well looked after and appreciated.

I found somewhere quiet and private to get changed into Memah for the Saturday afternoon and am pleased to report it only took about 40 minutes to get ready!  A vast improvement on previous times when it has taken a lot longer! I spent Saturday afternoon in the centre, with the public and by the prop table and also by its entrance in an effort to keep cool, taking regular breaks from the very tight fitting lekku...  headdress!!   We finished trooping on the Saturday at about 5:00pm and then de-kitted before heading off with Craig, and Ian, Marie and Nigel who had traveled down from the North East for the event,  to Liskard to a restaurant for some much needed sustenance. 

I then had a much needed early night at the Premier Inn that we were staying at whilst, Jim, Craig and Nigel had a few drinks in the Hotel Bar.

Sunday morning was a more leisurely start with a full English cooked breakfast at the Hotel before we set off to be back at the centre for 09:00am.  

Once at the Hotel, I set off to find a private room where I could get dressed and made up into Memah again and then spent the day as Memah.  I was impressed at the number of people who knew that I was a Twi'lek although they did not necessarily know who my character was but I received lots of compliments and there were lots of children who wanted their photo taken with the "Blue Lady"

I spent most of Sunday in the Jedi workshops with Paul and Craig hosting them and Jim taking part in nearly all of them, whilst those of us who were not in the workshops and the Mint Imperials mingled and posed for photos with the visitors to the centre. The day went very, very quickly!!

There are a lot of people to thank for this event and I will probably forget some, so apologies if I do miss anyone but thanks to Jim, Craig, Nigel, Ian, Marie, Colin, Eric, Paul, Paul, Susan, Rob, Jacquie, Ken, Chris, Daz and all the crew from the Mint Imperials and a Special Huge thanks to Paul T for organising this event... it was a blast!

Event kindly written by the Craigster as I missed this event and went on a girlie night out instead! Thanks Craig! x

Hey Guys just doing a guest blog as Sue wasn’t here for this event.

The 99th was invited to go to the That's Entertainment in Crystal Peaks shopping centre for a nice weekend troop.  Started off as a Friday stop over at Jim and Sue's with the usual tea on Friday ready for a early morning on Saturday.

Set off with just me and  jim in the car on the way to the troop whilst Sue kept catching some sleep.  We set off in the morning on the way to crystal peaks with map on board and google directions, as we didn’t have the sat nav in car.  This proved troublesome for us as we attempted to navigate the tiny b roads and country lanes to get the Sheffield.

Took a fair few wrong turns here and there but we got a nice scenic route of the old farms and hills on the way, the diversiosn probably didn’t help as i could read the map to save my life lol, but we got there in the end.

When arriving there we where greated by the rest of troops getting ready and chilling above the shop in the chaging rooms in thats Entertainment that looked like the warehouse off Indiana Jones and the raiders of the lost ark except with DVD’s and games.  Whilst getting changed managed to show off a bit of work i was doing on the website and get feedback on how the design was going so it was easy to understand.

But after a bit off faffing and chatting we all made our way down stairs and ready to step out in to the shop and the shopping centre, we had a nice parade of Vader, two  stormies, me as sandie, 1 black hole trooper followed by a tie pilot and twilek.

Stepping out in to the shop we were greeted by a great presentation of cheers and ohhh’s, which set the standard for the day as people "ooohhhed" and "agghhed" as we trooped in the shop and outside.

Was a really nice troop with alot of intrigued kiddies at the sight of vader and the troops, managed to get down in the hood by giving out “respect” with the kids;).

With the shop packed and the shopping centre very busy it got very warm very quick and before ya knew it ya lenses would steam up and so would you, luckelly the back door was open upstairs in the changing rooms and it was raining so it was very easy to cool down.

We all managed to get our selves a fan club in the form off Shanie and the rest of the staff of That's entertainment.

Big thanks to Jeff , Darren stocks, Craig E, Nigel , Marie, Jim and Michaela & Kayleigh.

Collection for Dreamflight at East Midlands Airport - Sat 30th July 2011

As the Charity Liaison Officer of the 99th Garrison and a non medical escort of the Dolphin Group of Dreamflight [see www.dreamflight.org] I managed to get permission to collect for Dreamflight at the East Midlands Airport.

Being an event at airport, security was tight and I had to submit photos of the costumes and especially the weapons in advance to see if we could be accepted by the airport police/security.  Fortunately, we got the all clear for the costumes and the weapons!  This included correcting them on their assumption that our armour was "fancy dress"!!  They soon realised that this was not the case!

The airport staff told me that their busiest slot was between 05:00am and 08:00am so if we wanted to maximize our collection we would need to be there ready to collect for 5:00am.  It takes about an hour for us to get ready and get dressed so that meant being at the airport for 04:00am, which meant getting up at 02:00am and leaving base at 02:30.

So, Friday night was an early night!  I was in bed for 21:00 hrs and slept quite well until just after midnight and then I was awake!  

The drive to the airport was very quiet as all other sensible people were still tucked up in bed but we had a pleasant journey and  I felt reasonably awake.... this feeling wasn't to last long though!  The Craigster had stayed with us on the Friday night and despite him not being able to sleep even he managed to stay awake for the journey!

On arrival at the airport, we met up with Jeff, who had very kindly agreed to step in as our Lord Vader for this event at the last minute and had driven from Peterborough.  We also met up with Simon who had driven from Wrexham and had picked up Darran from near Derby en route. 

We were then shown the board room which was to be our base for the day and got ready.  As we were short on troopers/crew I crewed for the event in my officer's uniform but we we had Lord Vader and four stormtoopers.  

The airport was busy with people jetting off on their jollies between 05:00 and 08:00 and lots of people wanted their photos with us but after that the airport was fairly quiet with just a steady stream of travellers and staff wanting their photos with us.  Because it was quiet and we were getting very tired we called it a day about 10:15am and in that time we managed to collect £188.41 and five euros!  So, not bad but not brilliant!  Given the effort we had gone to to get there so early I was hoping for more.  But I'm hoping that now that the airport management know us and how we work I may be able to get permission to collect at Manchester Airport which is owned by the same company and is a much bigger and busier airport where hopefully we could collect a lot more.  Fingers crossed!

We de-kitted and then went to a nearby services and had a break and a drink before setting off to base again... feeling very tired at this point but managing to stay awake which was just as well, seeing as how I was driving.  We got back to base just before 2:00pm and went to bed and slept for a couple of hours!

A Huge thanks to Simon, Jeff, Craig, Jim and Darran!