Our expedition to Costa Rica, in Central America was to cost each member of our team £2650. This was our first task. -Every one of us needed to find a way to raise this amount of money, with as little help from family and friends as possible. We all wrote begging letters for sponsorship, job applications and asking for money or kit from all relatives instead of christmas presents.
Our eventual S. Mary and S. Anne team consisted of:
Helen Coney, Kate Davies, Katy Lambert, Selina Ball, and Me.
Our Link Teacher, Mrs Lampard, will be called Liz for the entire expedition. I can’t really imagine getting used to calling any teacher by a first name.
Our team was too small to travel by itself, so we were introduced to the team from Priestly Collage:
Cheryl Hill, Jennie Carter, Simon Ogunlana, Mark Steele, and their teacher, Geoff
We didn’t meet Priestly until our Quiz evening, which was our third fundraising event.
Our first event was the Costa Rica evening which served to ‘educate’ parents and friends about Costa Rica (what we knew of it), and our tasks there. We provided some ‘typical’ Costa Rican food, such as salsa, tortillas, plenty of rice, etc, and gave a presentation about the country, followed by a quiz.
Our second big fundraiser was Helen’s play in February 2002. She worked on perfecting the script for months. By the end, we had a large cast. The play itself, lasted for a little over 50 minutes, and so we added an interval, and a short talent show, eventually won by Helen herself and her sister, Beth. (No fix, the judges were completely unbiased!) The funniest entry was Kate (Davies) of the team, who performed the poem “The Lion and Albert”, complete with Blackpool accent. “And swallowed the little lad… ’ole!”
The final evening was the Quiz and Silent Auction. Everybody donated something for this, which was our alternative to a raffle. It was before this that we nervously awaited Priestly’s arrival in the Perham Hall at 6pm that Friday night. It was May 3rd 2002, and we were about to meet the rest of the team. The week before, at our ‘Meet the Leader’ afternoon, we briefly met Geoff, the Link from Priestly, who would be travelling with us and Jane, our World Challenge Leader. It got to 6 ‘o’clock, and a little blue car shot round the corner. We didn’t recognise any of the four people in it, and we all burst into hysterical/terrified giggles as we waited for them to park and come to the door…
The night went well. We all went to supper, apologising for school food, then we made the lads help us with taking huge bottles of water upstairs to Thompson Hall. (Well, they were heavy, and the guys could have refused!!)
The quiz itself was hosted by local quiz star, David Edwards, winner of the Million on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire!! (We decided it was fair to ask, being as his wife was our deputy head!)
Sadly, the silent auction was not a great success, with only the cheapest items being bid for, and many things selling for far less than their reserve price, but this disappointment was made up for by the success of the evening as a whole.
We ended up with a significant amount of money in our group funds. This was split equally between the whole AB team, including Liz.
The excitement built and built, as did the nerves, throughout the exam period. -Unlike the Kenya trip 2 years ago, everybody in both teams had exams. Kate had GCSEs, Katy, Selina and myself, AS levels, and Helen, along with the four from Priestly College all had various A levels to deal with. With all this to think about, he time hurried on faster perhaps than we did ourselves, and we were left behind, with even Selina, who had been the first to buy the most important pieces of her kit left lacking in small but significant elements such as biodegradable soap and gloves!
