It’s a knock out
Sunday morning arrived and so did the rain, lots of it, too much in fact, it is fair to say when each of the team members pulled back their curtains yesterday their excitement about taking part turned to oh no!!!
10.00am dawned and the team were all huddled in a gazebo shivering trying to drum up positive thoughts about the next couple of hours.......
As you can see we were excited.......
but all that changed once we entered into the arena......the sight of the huge inflatables and the enthusiasm presented by the compere and the It's a knock out staff was infectious.
The team acquiesced to getting very wet and the games begin.......
Game 1 - half the team was on one side of an inflatable obstacle course wearing a hard hat with a welly attached to either side. The other team members at the opposite end of the inflatable obstacle course with a bag of water. Both sides meet in the middle to fill the wellies full of water and team who safely carries the most water back to the bucket at the end wins. Our water carriers Andy and Kerry quickly cottoned on to the fact that the wellies only took half a bag of water to fill so they were able to drench their team members with the remaining water!
In game one we picked up our one and only injury :o( Sam cut her chin on the welly helmet, luckily the St Johns Ambulance gave her a huge plaster to make it better....or give the rest of her team a bit of a laugh!! It is needless to say that the plaster didn't stay attached for long.
Game 2 - six team member's feet were attached to a plank
and having to walk in unison along the course. Jon was leading the team and
holding a wheelbarrow containing Katie. The team had to get across the course
picking up buckets of water on route and when they got to the end they had
to throw the water at the man holding down a huge inflatable clown to release
him to allow Katie to pin the nose on his face.
We discovered that walking in unison wasn't out strong point....some people clearly didn't know their left from their right as it took about 5 attempts to get going!
Game 3 - this was a fast and furious giant obstacle course where you had to get 6 sweeties from one end back to make a big tube. The tricky bit was at the far end where Katie has to give the sweeties to and direct a blind folded Jon wearing a sumo suit to meet the team members who were running from one end of the course to the other.
Dan and Satinder completed the final leg and did a brilliant job of racing the sweetie tube back along the course and into the toy box to victory for team Opus!!!
Game 4 - the funniest of them all!! Race from one end to the other of a giant inflatable course covered in foam to the other carrying a token which you had to throw to the person in jail at the other end. Once at one end you had to go back across the course.......the final drop was into a pool of freezing water - genius!!
It is fair to say we didn't win - boooo but we had a brilliant time, personally I don't think I have laughed that much in ages......seeing Katie fall out of a wheelbarrow as she was laughing so much or Satinder attacking the foam covered course like a true professional or Andy who very kindly threw a bag of cold water over me at the beginning just for the hell of it. We all very quickly forgot about the cold and instead committed to giving our all. The event raised over 12,000 for the fours charities taking part so was a great success. For Opus Energy's Cynthia Spencer Hospice fundraising the team has added another 410 so far, with more sponsorship to be added.