Funday 2008 – Alton Towers
There’s something about a trip to a theme park in England in September – queues and rain!
Well, the Ichthyosis Support Group wasn’t going to be put off. 200 of us braved the elements and drove through the grey early morning drizzle to be greeted by the smiles of Claire and Mandy at the gates of Alton Towers.
Welcoming hot and cold refreshments were enjoyed before the children, who didn’t want any of that hanging around talking and stuff, dragged their mums and dads away to ‘do’ the rides.
Following the initial rush the function rooms were fairly calm with only a few of our ‘new families’ staying to get to know each other – and us. It’s always good to see our families and it was especially great to meet the 14 new families who hadn’t been to an ISG event before.
Alton Towers provide superb facilities for organisations like ours and the only thing that they couldn’t control was the weather, but even so by mid morning the clouds dissolved and the drizzle stopped. Would our families come back we were thinking? Alton Towers offers so much to see and do, would the children let their parents come back for lunch? We didn’t have to worry – they did!
After the calmness of earlier, 100 kids, 100 adults and a pirate came laughing and shouting into the function suite for lunch and it didn’t get much quieter even when everyone was tucking in to a delicious meal. It was terrific to see so many ichthyosis kids looking quite so happy and they grew especially excited when the pirate gathered them together to baffle them with his magic.
We took advantage of this break to hold our EGM.
After ransacking the lucky dip the children took their parents off again and enjoyed the rest of the day spotting other ISG families around the park.
Eventually the sun did appear to dry out those who had been soaked on some of the many rides, before everyone headed off from a day that had been full of fun.
So were you there?
Next year we are holding our National event in Birmingham over the weekend of the 16th and 17th May. More details will be coming out to you very soon but please mark your calendars and clear your diaries now. We would love for you to join us for this fantastic weekend.
*On the Saturday the kids will be taken out whilst you’ll have many opportunities of finding out the latest information on ichthyosis. On the Sunday morning we will be hosting a European Network for Ichthyosis meeting which we anticipate will bring in many of our European neighbours and then in the afternoon all our families will be invited join in with something fun.
*Subject to change