From the Nordelph Community website

NORDELPH COMMUNITY WEBSITE: Raft Race edition 2009

Sunday August 16th was a fine warm Summer's day -- proof that the organisers' policy of sacrificing disposable members of the Parish Council to the weather gods had at last paid off! The sterling work done by the organisers in publicising the raft race and associated fun day had also paid dividends as hundreds of people flocked in, not just from Nordelph but from surrounding villages and towns. The first sights that greeted the visitors were grown men who ought to have known better dressed in silly costumes:

Incidentally, if your sense of taste is sufficiently decayed for you to want to see these horrifying images enlarged, clicking on any picture in this update will open a high-resolution version in its own window so that you can examine the image to see if it truly is without any redeeming features! And right-clicking on the full image will allow you the option of saving your own copy.

Fortunately, some people with a significant role in the day were more seriously attired; the day was in part a celebration of the gift of the Village Hall from Magdalen Farms to the village. To mark that, Dick Balls the chair of the Parish Council invited representatives of Magdalen Farms to unveil a commemorative plaque.

Amazingly, and bucking the trend of previous races, every single one of the 11 rafts not only stayed afloat, but also finished the course! To be more accurate, all rafts finished the course, and all but one stayed afloat -- the casualty only capsized after winning! There were so many entries that the organisers had to re-arrange the event into three races -- Well Creek not being wide enough to accommodate all of the adult rafts!

We should perhaps change our flippant tone to acknowledge that a lot of hard work by a lot of people resulted in the best fun day in the village in recent memory. It would be invidious to name those who worked hard, because we would be bound to leave someone out, and the ones who came (and spent) contributed as much to the day as the organisers. Their efforts were rewarded with donations for charity in excess of £564.93. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the East Anglian Air Ambulance will both benefit.

Everyone seems to have enjoyed the day, and most people are already looking forward to the next village event which is likely to be a New Years' Party (there's more of this in the following pages). There are even suggestions for improving (were this possible) the next raft race (which is already pencilled in for Sunday August 15th 2010:

How about next year having a raft building workshop a coupla weeks beforehand to stimulate interest - not too serious and a dry (?!) run for the main event.

We've put together a selection of pictures taken on the day. You can choose to browse them all by following our THIS MONTH button trail, or select from the menu below: