The Heart of Kent Hospice, HOKH, is one of the charities that FAB supports and so when their fund-raising team came up with the idea of offering sponsored pillion rides we were up for the challenge and got involved with the event organisation. The idea was for people who have always wanted to have a motorcycle pillion ride to sign up for the ride, and pay for the privilege, get sponsorship from family and friends and then enjoy a short ride on the back of one of our motorbikes.
HOKH widened the event to include a summer fair and approached Aylesford Rugby Club to host the day, which they did willingly. In addition, many hospice supporters were organised to provide stalls selling cakes, flowers, jewellery and books and with a small funfair attending and the rugby club manning the barbecue there was plenty organised for visitors.
FAB members pledged support and on the day 12 bikes, including two non-members, 11 friends and many support vehicles attended at 9am to set up the FAB stand. Once established a welcome cup of tea and bacon roll readied the FAB crew for the impending onslaught.
Sadly not everything turns out as successful as we would like and the event was lacking in visitors although we did give pillion rides to more than 20 people and all those declared it a success, great value for money and thoroughly enjoyable. At 3pm we packed up the kit and set off for home and on meeting up that evening for the obligatory beer all agreed that we would try again in the near future.
The hospice did declare the event a success as just over £700 was raised on the day for this very worthy cause.
Many thanks to Ken, Kevin R, Nic, Allan, JV, Bob, Brian, Paul, Rod, KB, and non-members Pete and Roger for providing pillion rides, and to Jan, James, Tracy, Janice, Sharon, Dawn, Lynda, Ken, Andy U, Shaun and Hannah for working hard to administer rides and providing support on the day, and to non-members Matthew and the kids for support and entertainment.