The 99th Garrison attends the Spaceport Heroes and Villains Weekend - 22nd - 23rd Sept 2012

 The 99th Garrison was asked to attend a themed weekend at the Spaceport Centre on the Wirral.  This wasn't a charity fundraising event but was a publicity/promotional event for the Spaceport Centre.

This event wasn't a Star Wars themed event but a general Heroes and Villains weekend but as it was based at a Space Centre, a few star wars characters fitted in quite well.  So, there was me, Paul [Tie Figher Pilot], Grant Commander Cody], Jim [Crew], Colin [|Kick Ass], Eric [Crew] and Danielle{hit Girl] and other charcaters such as Captain America, Wonderwoman, Batman, The penguin, Spiderman and Catwoman and others!  

This was an early start for me as I was doing Memah at this event and needed to be ready for 10:00am.  It was a 2 hour drive!  I was the first to arrive though and was quickly shown through to our changing room for the day.

There was only a small number of the 99th at this event due to its style/theme and the fact that we had another large event on the 22nd Sept at the Sage in Newcastle Upon Tyne where we put up a very, very impressive turn out indeed!

The first floor of the Spacecentre is heavily aimed at children and is based on A Grand Day Out for Wallace and Gromit.. and I just had to have my photo taken with these two wonderful characters!

It was a fairly cold day outside the venue so I spent most of it indoors keeping warm and posing for photos with the kiddies.  

It was a good day and soon time to go home but boy..... did my feet ache!!!

Thanks to Don't Panic and The Spacecentre for inviting us.  Great to see Paul, Jim, Colin, Eric, Grant and to meet Colin's daughter Danielle.

99th Garrison supports the MS Society

The 99th Garrison was asked to support the Burnley Branch of the MS Society at an evening's Fundraising event at the Oaks Hotel.

We were asked to do meet and greet as the guests arrived.  I had decided to do Memah for this one and that meant being there early... in my case, 5:30pm.

There was no Craigster for this one so it was straight to the venue.  On arrival we were shown to our rooms for the night and I took over the bathroom to do the transformation!  Ken only lived locally to the venue and brought his Rolls Royce to the hotel to show us.  It is in its mid thirties and was in a bit of state when he bought it but he had given it a lot of TLC and it is now lovely and available for weddings!  Well done Ken!  Jim for a short ride in it with Ken but I had to go and get ready!

I was ready by 6:45 and ready for the first guests to arrive at 7:00pm.  We posed for photos at a £1 a go and even to to pose with Brian Rose - British Light Middleweight Champion and to hold his [very heavy] belt!

We were finished by 8:45pm and then de-kitted [and in my case de-blued] before having some very nice bacon butties that had been supplied for us.  

We then set off for the long journey home not getting back until 11:30 pm.

Thanks to Jim, Ken, James and Grant and to Emma for inviting us along!.

And thanks to Gary Bates for taking the photos! :-)

99th Garrison at Dan and Erica's wedding - 13th August, 2012

The 99th Garrison was asked by Dan Fountain and his bride to be Erica to attend their wedding to add a touch of Star Wars.  Dan is a big fan of Star Wars who we had met when collecting in a shopping centre in Sheffield and he has since become a generous supporter of Dreamflight providing a variety of raffle prizes and donations over the past year or so to Dreamflight fundraising events.

The wedding took place at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire and wow!..... what a fabulous setting.  It was absolutely idyllic.

We needed to be in armour for 1:00pm so arrived at the Castle at about 11:30 ish and met up with Neil… or Lord Vader.  Neil is the tallest Vader I have ever seen and is about 7 foot when he is in his costume; making me feel tiny!  

I also had a quick look around at the Birds of Prey that the castle keeps which you can book some time to spend with and fly them.  The Castle also does Land Rover Day experiences in the huge woodlands which surround it.  There were also some classes in archery taking place.

We were then joined by James, David, Paul, Colin and his Dad Eric.  We had four stormtroopers, two scouts and Lord Vader and Eric as excellent crew.

We had a very grand room to get changed in… never walked on carpet so plush before!

We were ready for about 12:50 so we went outside for some fresh air and to prepare for the groom’s arrival… as this was no ordinary arrival -  Dan was due to arrive by helicopter on the lawn outside the front of the castle.  There were already guests outside who obviously did not know about our attendance and were happily surprised and suitably impressed.

The helicopter arrived bang on time and made a couple of circles around the castle before landing.  Dan told us afterwards that the pilot played a joke on him and pretended that they were going to have to make a crash landing as there was a serious problem and then having fallen quite low and close to the ground suddenly pulled up again!  Poor Dan….. didn’t help his pre-wedding nerves at all!

Whilst the helicopter was landing, it was quite funny to see Lord Vader’s cloak almost taking off and the force of the breeze also flicked up his shoulder bells…. But no harm was done..fortunately!

Once the rotators had stopped the Best Man's Lamborghini parked up next to it and Dan's   Ferrari  was already parked on the drive!  Most impressive! 

We then marched in formation to the helicopter and then escorted the Groom and his party to the venue for some much needed pre-wedding ceremony drinks in the castle’s coach house.

It was then a case of mixing with the guests and posing for photographs before the bride’s arrival at 2:00pm.  Fortunately, although rain had been forecast for virtually all of the UK, the day stayed bright and dry. 

Me and Colin also got to sit in the helicopter too!  My first time ever and one of the advantages of Scout armour over Stormtrooper armour as at least we can move around more and sit down!

We provided a Guard of Honour for the guests’ entrance into the Castle’s Main Hall where the wedding ceremony was due to take place and also for the Bride’s entrance as well.  She looked gorgeous! And had the perfect princess’s wedding dress for the venue/location with much assistance and finishing touches being provided on her arrival by both her wedding planner and six beautiful bridesmaids on the steps to the Hall.

We then had a quick break whilst the service took place before we were back out on the lawn for the main professional photo shoot.  The wedding was also videoed and hopefully we’ll get to see that and some of the photos too.

We were then told that there was some food and drink waiting for us in the Castle’s bar and we were very well looked after indeed.  It was quite funny as the tables were laid out for us with proper posh cutlery etc and chairs but the Stormtroopers couldn’t even sit down…. But it was nice to live the high life and be spoilt.  

The owner of the castle then asked if we could hang around for his five year old son [Lucas] to come home from Nursery so that he could have some photos with us.  We could have what liked from the bar in terms of food and drink whilst we waited… sadly I was driving!

We killed the time by going back outside onto the Lawn.  The wedding guests were having their wedding breakfast by this point and we took advantage of the empty bouncy castle and space hoppers which had been provided.  This included my and Colin having a race across the lawn on the space-hoppers and Lord Vader sitting on one and falling off!!  

Lucas arrived home at about 5:00pm and sadly, was too frightened to have his photo taken with us alone.  We tried our best, even taking our helmets off to show him that we were just normal people [some would say that helmets off actually is more frightening!!] but all he would do in the end was pose for one photo with his Dad holding him in his arms.  

We de-kitted after this and then had a quick drink in the bar before setting off.  

A great day and one which raised at least £400 for Dreamflight.  More was to be collected in the evening as Dan asked for a couple of collection pots to be left and he was going to nag his guests to donate!  I’ll confirm the final amount once it is known.

A huge thanks to Dan and Erica for inviting us to their special day and to David, James, Jim, Eric, Colin, Neil and Paul for making it such fun.

99th Garrison attends a Charity concert for the Lymphoma Association in memory of Mel - Saturday 18th August, 2012.

Mark Busby [who we had previously attended the football matches at Notts Forest and Chesterfield for in May] had invited us along to meet and greet the guests as they arrived at a Rowing Club venue in Nottingham.

The venue was nest door to Notts and there was a match going on when we arrived so we killed some time by having a 99 with flake [but sadly no raspberry ripple] whilst we waited for the various burger vans etc and the supporters to depart so that we could then park where we had been instructed to.

We had to be in Armour for six and what had been an average day weatherwise suddenly turned very hot and sunny and within 10 mintues of starting to get into costume, I was sweating... it was hot.

We had a changing room which was located at the back of the stage and on entering the stage/hall I met Aundrea Nyle from the voice who gave me a new trooping name.... a "Troopette"  I like!

We then went outside which was only slighter cooler than being indoors to meet and greet.  It was fairly quiet for us with no collection pots to rattle and only a few photos and by 7:30 as most of the guests had arrived we dekitted and then stayed to watch some of the acts.

We also got to hold an Olympic Torch!!

We saw a duet called Distracted who were very young and very good, Chole Pownall who was also very good and Carmel Reynolds... who was very good and reached some very high notes very successfully. http://www.facebook.com/events/108514202616579/   Further detail can be found about the event and acts here.

There were only four of us at this event so, a huge thanks to Craig, Darran and Jim and to Mark for inviting us... Sadly I did not get to see Aundrea Nyle as I had to leave at about !0:00pm and she still hadn't been on but I'm hoping to see her again at another event for Mark some time.

99th Garrison collecting for Christies Cancer Trust - Didsbury Festival - 16th June, 2012

The 99th Garrison was asked to support a fund raising day at the Didsbury Festival in Manchester on the 16th June, 2012.

We picked up the Craigster en route to Didsbury and were at the venue for 10:00am.  Ken was already there waiting for us and brought with him copies of a local newspaper from Burnley which contained a story and photo about him being a stormtrooper and member of the 99th Garrison.  A good bit of publicity Ken!

Our changing room for the day was at Matt's house.  Matt is a friend of Craig's from Uni and now work and Matt was to be the first to wear the Christie bear costume for the day.

We had to be in armour for 11:00am and then set off on the short walk from Matt's to the festival.  We harassed a few on lookers who were waiting for the Festival parade and although we did not take part in the parade from the start, we were able to join in at the front for about the last ten minutes or so.

We then had a spot on the festival field with the Christie table/tent and were very busy... busier than I I had anticipated given the weather and what had been forecast.  It was cold and grey and it did rain from time to time but it was still a busy festival. The worse rain waited for 4:00pm when we were due to finish anyway and we got soaked walking back to Matt's.

Lunch was chips from a chippy in Didsbury which had been voted the best chippy in Cheshire... very nice too and did involve another walk to and from Matt's again..  This was in a residential area and I think that the local residents were getting used to seeing us walking up and down their residential streets!

From our posing for photographs we managed to collect £308.55 for Christies and in total, £854.96 was collected for Christies on the day which was well more than had been hoped for... I think we were a huge hit with the fundraisers!

A huge thank you to Ken, Craig, David and Jim [sorry Ken, but you left before the post troop photo] and to Matt and Vicky and Matt's family for making us feel so welcome and taking over their front room!