Mando Motor Mayhem Success

Siobhan, November 30th, 2011

You might recall that a few weeks ago on this blog I talked about the exciting charity event that our Mando Foundation team were putting on, to raise money in support of Countess of Chester appeal Relative Comfort. November has gone by in a bit of a blur, and I can report that all the totals from the evening are now in, and the evening was a huge success.

Over 70 guests showed up to Leaf Tea Shop & Bar on Bold Street to participate, mingle, and just generally have a good time. Entertainment in the form of our very own Matt Stephens as MC and music from excellent local covers band Duke gave the evening a great atmosphere, while support from local businesses such as Hope Street Hotel and the Everyman & Playhouse encouraged real generosity in people entering the raffle, hoping for a chance to win some awesome prizes.

All this of course was an aside to the real fun, the awesome Scalextric tournament which everyone turned up for. The 8-lane Scalextric track was brilliant – bells, whistles, and really cool glowing lights – and dominated the room, and the pre-tournament free-for-all really ramped up excitement for the main event. A number of our clients, friends, and local businesses kindly sponsored a car for the evening, were given the opportunity to brand it however they saw fit – my personal favourite was the glitzy, bedazzled Glitterbug from Liverpool Science Park – and nominated a driving team to lead them to glory or (in some cases) despair in our miniature Grand Prix.

In the end, River Professional Services’ designated driver demonstrated an impressive aptitude for speeding around the track and led to them scooping the 1st prize of a bottle of bubbly and a rather impressive trophy. The had close competition all evening in the form of local architecture firm Falconer Chester, who followed them to second place, while our Gemma’s determined driving gave third spot on the podium to Mando Group!

There was of course a design competition held to acknowledge the effort put in by those who branded their car – it turns out that apparently not everyone’s tastes runs to diamantes like mine does, as the prize for best dressed automobile went to Curly Productions’ Batmobile-inspired creation, which was a demon on the track despite narrowly missing out on a podium spot.

Ultimately, the generosity of everyone involved helped to raise just shy of £3500 for the Relative Comfort appeal, pushing them past their £300,000 target just in time for the 31st December deadline.

Janet Ratcliffe, Fundraising Manager for the Relative Comfort appeal, said: “It was a brilliant evening– a fundraising event with a difference where everybody could participate and have fun. Sadly I didn’t back the winning car but nevertheless it was thoroughly enjoyable and the icing on the cake was to find out later what a fantastic amount had been raised for our appeal”