Sunday, 8th November marked the 2nd year of the Cedar Lakes Charity Duck Race as part of fundraising towards our Momentum 94.7 Cycle Challenge 2015. Initially the idea of Rob Nicolson started a year ago and now a joint effort with 3 of our cyclists who reside on the estate. This event takes months of planning, sponsor hunting, gift searching, sourcing of ducks to race, etc. We extend our gratitude to all those that helped us with the planning of this event throughout the year. The day kicked off early with enthusiastic “Cedarlakians” purchasing their ducks and decorating them with immense effort and great attention to detail. It was fantastic to see some of the Dads’ getting in on the action and putting on the final touches to their children’s beautiful ducks.
As always, the technical side of the duck race is the most difficult! It takes great effort in assessing windward and leeward around the dam and exactly where to place the ducks. After great consideration the ducks were carefully placed over the side of the balcony by the clubhouse…..and there they stayed, all stacked up with nowhere to go! It was Rob Hawley and Jayden Gambon to the rescue, tacking and jibing their way to rescue the ducks, with loads of encouragement from the bystanders, each making sure their duck was rescued. Off to the middle of the dam they went and the race began.
Congratulations to the winners in each of the categories, we had 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prizes plus best decorated duck for the kiddie’s race, the individual race as well as our very generous corporate participants. Congratulations to Chilli Tree who will be keepers of the floating trophy handed over from our previous Corporate Winners, SIS Global. Thanks to all our corporate sponsors that participated – BrandSync, Chili Tree Spices, Crossman Pape & Associate, Dynamic Textiles, LSC, Palladium Accounting & SIS Global. Prizes were generously donated by Barnyard Cresta, Chilli Tree Cresta, Dfine Fitness, Entertainment Books, Fourways Chiropractors, Lego, SIS Global, Sorbet Fourways Mall and some private individuals who generously donated bottles and gifts for the day – thank you!
Special thanks to Southern Spoor Marketing, who donated a fantastic weekend away for 2 to at The Maropeng Boutique Hotel, a 2 night stay including dinner and breakfast. Well done Michael Coad for being a great sport and offering the highest amount for this prize in our auction.
Post-race, we had the pleasure of being entertained with background tunes played by Lloyd and Ralph Daniel, thanks guys for donating your time for the event. The day ended off with some fun games like egg & spoon races, musical chairs, etc. but the men’s musical statues had to be the funniest!
It really was a scorcher of a day and IMAGINE thanks the Lifestyle committee, in particular Jane Corrigan and Catherine Permuy as well as all the people who came down and supported us on the day, you really did make a difference! Thanks to Lanser & Gary and their team from the clubhouse for keeping us hydrated and fed, to Willem for his assistance in setting up on the day and to Sean Permuy for once again being our MC.
IMAGINE Charity raised R16, 404 from this fun filled fundraiser!
The Cape Town Cycle Tour (formerly known as the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Momentum Cycle Tour) saw scores of cyclists from all over the globe gear up for the largest individually timed cycling event in the world on Sunday, 8 March 2015 despite devastating Cape wildfires. Over 30,000 cyclists took to the roads in our Mother City and among them were 20 of our 23 registered IMAGINE riders. The recent fires in the South Peninsula forced the organizers to shorten the normal route from its 109km distance to 47km but this didn’t stop us from making the most of the weekend and the ride in Cape Town.
Some of our riders used this opportunity to ride on Saturday as well and enjoyed some of the scenery Cape Town has to offer from their bicycles. The IMAGINE Team met on Friday evening for drinks & snacks and collected their race packs at The Southern Sun Waterfront. The general consensus was that our new cycling shirts rocked! Everyone set off at their own times on Sunday morning and all finished their ride in good time. Thank you to Robert Hawley for sharing our first Argus experience as IMAGINE with our cerebral palsy twins Riaan & Christo from start to finish. This was the twins fifth Argus but the first one since 2000 so well done guys!
Despite the shortened route the spirit out there on the day was spectacular. Knowing what the circumstances were the changes were accepted and people had a great time. We celebrated the day into the early evening at Quay4 at the V & A Waterfront.
A lot of hard work goes into making the Cape Town Cycle Tour happen and we are grateful that we were still able to have the ride despite the challenges Cape Town is facing. There are many unsung heroes behind the scenes that made the event a success and we must say that we are very impressed at the high level of organization and efficiency so well done to Cape Town for hosting another great Cape Town Cycle Tour!
Results for our team as per racetech.co.za:
Cameron Condie
01:21:05
Johan Venter
01:28:03
Roger Powell
01:37:10
Tyron Tarpey
01:37:28
Sean McDonald
01:37:56
Alex Georgiladakis
01:39:37
Kirk Walker
01:39:37
Christopher Swanepoel
01:41:24
Angie Da Costa
01:46:32
Robert Wright
01:47:19
Colin Branson
01:49:56
Tracy Watcham
01:49:56
Nicole
Wittstock
01:51:13
Claudia Condie
01:56:32
Robert Hawley
01:58:44
Riaan Badenhorst
01:58:44
Christo Badenhorst
01:58:44
Tenika-Joy Ryan
02:03:42
Brendan Watcham
Time not recorded
Matthew Mills
Time not recorded
Mark Heaton
Did not ride
Darrel Caister
Did not ride
Sean Verster
Did not ride
Thank you to all our riders that rode this race to help us raise awareness for people living with cerebral palsy and thank you to those of you that made generous donations to the cause. A huge thanks is extended to SIS Global for the sponsorship of the pre event, post event and most importantly for sponsoring Riaan and Christo making it possible for them to participate in this event after 10 years!
One thing is for sure, everyone that was in Cape Town for the Cycle Tour this past weekend will agree that it was certainly a Cycle Tour we will never forget!