The best ever Horsham Pancake Races were created on Tuesday by a heady mix of glorious sunshine, eleven zany Mascots led by Horsham FC’s Howie the Hornet and Crystal Palace’s Alice the Eagle, 30 teams of over excited gaudily dressed competitors and a fantastic Horsham crowd of spectators. The event was a great success and has established itself as a wonderful opening attraction to the Town’s annual event calendar.
The event was organised as usual by the Rotary Club of Horsham, with support from main sponsor Ringway, who supplied the arena barriers and signs, Sainsbury’s, who supplied the pancakes, sugar and lemon juice, TV’s Dave Benson Phillips who energetically compered the event; and of course Horsham District Council’s Event Team.
Eleven Giant Mascots competed with Howie and Alice in their hotly contested Egg & Spoon Races, with Barney the Bear just piping Alice in a rerun final to win the Ringway Mascot Cup. Horsham Rotary Club will donate £250 to the Children’s Trust for organising the mascot races and to help them with the fantastic work they do with children with severe disability.
Whilst this was primarily a fun lunchtime, the desire of many teams to win made it highly competitive with newcomers Santander Bank winning the prestigious Sainsbury’s Cup. The team from Fiesta Tots- Performing for U- won the Non-Stop Party Shop Best Fancy Dress Trophy whilst the best Individual Fancy Dress Trophy, donated by South East Hearing, went to Toby Cotton from Spofforths for his incredible ‘Wally’ impersonation.
The South East Hearing Centre retained the Waitrose Trophy for the best Over 40’s team and the Horsham Y Centre was the winning Charity Team. The Rawlison Butler Trophy for the member of the Winning Team who could produce the most skilful pancake flips was won by James Gillham of Santander Bank.
As well as gaining personal pride, the teams were also running for Charity with the proceeds of the event being divided between the British Heart Foundation as the Charity nominated by the winning team, and the most nominated charity which was Chestnut Tree House with five nominations, and the Y Centre for being the winning charity team; Each will receive £250. Horsham Rotary will also donate £100 to each of the other charities who received multiple nominations from the contestants …these are St Catherine’s Hospice, Set4Success, Dame Vera Lynn Trust, Horsham Community Responders and QE2 School.
Horsham Rotary Club, part of the Global Rotary Organisation, raises money for Local and International Charities and organises and participates in many local events. It is probably the largest independent non-political, non-religious charity in the area and has donated over £120,000 in the last 3 years. It’s ‘making a difference to Horsham‘ scheme has received over 300 requests for help in the last four years from local individuals and organisations and the Club has donated well over £50,000 in the fulfilment of these requests. The Club will now be organising The Easter Bunny Hunt, The Slot Cars at Piazza Italia and an Elephant Trail through Horsham during the summer holidays.
To find out more about Horsham Rotary and its work in the community, or to send an email, visit www.horshamrotary.org.uk.
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