The Belper Games 2017 Smashes It
The Belper Games Weekender returned on the 14th - 16th July this year and it once again broke all previous records raising over £37,000 for charity pushing total funds raised to almost £120,000
The event which is held each year in memory of local woman Penny Wheeler at Belper Rugby Club has grown massively since its inception in 2012.
From a half day event It has morphed into the biggest community event in the town, now filling up a whole weekend.
The event was extremely well attended once again and busier than ever.
The free movie Friday was packed out as little and big kids alike enjoyed watching The Jungle Book and The Goonies.
Friday also marked the start of the weekends real ale & cider festival at the outdoor charity bar featuring 29 different ales which proved rather popular!
Saturday was games day and after a brief shower early that morning the rain stayed away, and the people of Belper thankfully didn't.
They turned up in their thousands to enjoy a brilliant day out for the all the family and to cheer on the record number of 30 teams taking part in the it's a knockout competition (The eventual winners of which were Belper Women's Rugby Club).
There was live music all day across 2 stages, the music side of the event has grown massively over the last few years and is now as big a deal as the games themselves.
It went on into the after show and was headlined by local band Wheatabix who really got people up and jumping around.
Sunday is the event's chill out day after the mayhem if the Saturday and is essentially a music festival in a day featuring really high quality and diverse music throughout the day with a lot of local artists performing.
This year the weekend was wrapped up by Chris Helme (The Seahorses), Mark Morriss (The Bluetones) and the quite astonishing Jasper In The Company of Others.
On 2nd September The Belper Games committee held a presentation night at The Wheel Inn PH in Holbrook where they were joined by representatives from the 3 main charities that the games supports:
Ataxia UK, Scleroderma & Raynaud's UK and The Pulmonary Fibrosis Trust.
Each were handed cheques for £10,500.
Further donations were made to the local youth charity (The Drop Inn) who received £2000, Belper Army Cadet Force and volunteer group The Coalville Heroes each received £500 each for their invaluable help at the event.
They were also joined by the Mayor of Belper Peter Hurst, Pauline Latham MP, Jo Jo Slack (A young girl from Belper who also suffers with a rare condition Gillespie Syndrome) who opened the games this year and a number of sponsors of the event including Wheeldon Homes.
Pauline Latham commented on how proud she was of the wider Belper community for coming together for the event and how amazed she was at its growth over the last 6 years with only a small core committee of 5 people.
She congratulated all of the organisers and wished them well with the event in the future.
The Mayor echoed those comments and said that Belper Town Council will continue to support the event in anyway possible.
Nick Wheeler who is one of the organisers said “we would like to thank everyone that helps us with this event, teams, sponsors, musicians, volunteers and the rugby club for letting us hold it at the ground. Without your help we couldn't make it happen. Most of all I would like to thank the community of Belper for getting right behind us and helping us make it such a phenomenal success.
I know Penny would have been amazed at how it's grown, I'm immensely proud of how it's turned out.
So let's keep it going!’’
The organisers have already begun planning next year's Games and are already on the lookout for sponsorship.
If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities please get in touch with Jim Bull at thebelpergames@gmail.com or contact via their Facebook page.
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