The day didn’t have the best of starts as the first thing Team MPT had to do was slip into some fetching plastic ponchos to combat the rain, when the threatening grey clouds finally unleashed their gifts to us; but we are Team MPT and nothing stops our party and we battled on to mark out the pitches, arrange our boule and wrestle with a testy little gazebo tent and set up Petanque central in the lovely Georgian Square we called home for the day. We had T-shirts and moustaches available for donations and you could even purchase your own MPT boule set.

“It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining…"

With our players and guests expected from 12.30 onwards for 2pm start, that old Queen magic came to the rescue once again and the clouds parted and the sun arrived for a few hours for us to toss boule and enjoy the outdoors. As ever, it all starts off as great fun, people chatting, eating and drinking and then, once our players get into the swing, quite literally, it all gets rather competitive! Amongst the laughing and joking you would suddenly hear shrieks, an “Oooooh!” or a ‘Yessss!”, as shots were taken. 

After a few hours of group games and semi-finals, we had an extremely closely contested final that was won by Chris Eaborn and his team, which was actually a really nice touch as Chris has raised funds for the MPT before through bike and running competitions and more recently by overseeing the first ever Rotary Club event for the MPT in Lausanne, it sounds like a fix! But they were worthy winners and also had the best smiles! (see above!)

With the competition concluded it was all into the Prince Of Wales pub in the corner of the square, their staff had not only been fuelling the masses all day, but they even competed! It was nice to finally have a sit-down and speak to people you may have missed earlier, plus it's still fun seeing people sit at a bar deep in conversation wearing a stick on moustache.

Thanks to all who attended and continue to make this such fun day, a huge salute to the local residents who also help out, plus the local council who support the event.

And the best bit? We raised over £20,000 for the fight against HIV / AIDS Worldwide.

We are already booking the sunshine for next year.

Team MPT
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