Bolton MRT Annual Ceilidh, A resounding success

This evening saw all present taking to the dance floor at the teams Annual Ceilidh Dance. Organised by Bolton MRT call out list member Alison Yates, and held at the excellent and now regular venue of St Marys Church Hall, Horwich, well over 150 people attended the evenings entertainment. As ever the music, and of course the vital dancing instructions ! were provided by the superb ’Toll Bar Band.’

A great many faces familiar and unfamiliar turned up to support this great event, including ex team members Pete McKale and his partner, Peter Idle (and his wife Karen), Peter Ellwood and his partner, who had journeyed down from their new home in North Yorkshire, Gillian Leigh (Charles as was a long time ago !) and her young family, Claire Morrissey and Dan Lewis, who had journeyed down especially for this evening, from their new home in Penrith.

Amongst the guests were the usual large contingents (for want of a better word !) from the Morrissey family and from our Training Officers Fred Taylors family, who are all getting to be regular and much valued supporters of this event.

Young and old joined each other on the dance floor whether they could dance or not, often to the bemused laughter of the Toll Bar Band caller, who ultimately did such a good job to get us all to at least do a passable version of all the dances on the night. Proceedings took a mid evening break for the traditional pastie and pies supper, following which we held our now famous ’small’ raffle, with this year 43 prizes on offer ! (Thanks to team member Dave Sarti for his multiple bottles of wine donations in lieu of being unable to attend, and to team supporter Susan Rourke for donating many of the raffle prizes on offer)

After the supper and the raffle it was back to the dancing, amidst much laughter, including how did team member Tony Berry manage to win so many raffle prizes ! and will team member Mark Scott ever find his dancing feet ? (Left is this way Mark, right is the other way !)

A huge thanks to all who supported this fun evening, and helped our cause.
The biggest surprise is always that we arrange the evening primarliy as a social evening, and never really expect to raise much other than to cover the expenses of the evening and have a good time, so it is pleasure that we can announce this year the teams Annual Ceilidh has raised an amazing £253.00 for team funds.

Hopefully we will see everybody at next years Ceilidh Dance, and thanks once again to St Marys Church for letting us use their Church Hall, to the organiser Alison Yates, and finally but not least to the fantastic ’Toll Bar Band’ and their fantastic (and very understanding !) caller.