25 Dec 2024

LSC Summer Party Weekender 11th-12th Aug 2018

 

Like so many other scooter clubs, Liverpool Scooter Club hold an Open Day every year for members of the general public to come and join us and see what we’re all about. This year we decided to do things a little differently. On Saturday evening, the 11th of August 2018, we started our annual event with a party at the Alder Sports Club in Alder Road, West Derby, Liverpool. The music was provided by two excellent DJ’s Dave Bell and Mike Soffe, who are both members of our club.

A special mention must be given to Martin and Sandra McManus who came over from Belfast to be with us, and also our other very good friends Alan and Karen Masterson, Sean Johnson and Gill, and Mark O’Neill who all came over from Dublin. It was a pleasure to see them all again and their presence was greatly appreciated.

 

It was a fantastic night, we had the usual raffle and high class buffet. The evening raised a substantial amount of money for charity.

 

All too soon, the party came to an end. Some made their way home, while others continued the party in the ‘camping village’ where half a dozen brave souls had pitched tents to stay over in amongst the eight or nine vans and motor homes.

Our ‘Grand Rideout’

Sunday morning arrived and the weather forecast was not looking good.  Adam set up his food stall and cooked a full English. Great to get you in the mood for another long day!

We met up with a large number of scooter riders from the North West and North Wales scooter clubs for our traditional rideout from the Liverpool waterfront up to the Alder Club. A number of our chosen routes were thwarted either by roadworks or potential traffic problems as Liverpool football club were playing West Ham at home.

 

We devised a route which was ‘interesting’, and we had to have plenty of marshals as the procession got a bit fragmented at times due to the logistics of getting a large number of machines through traffic lights and road junctions etc.

Our ‘Open day’ back at the Alder Sports Club.

We all arrived safely at the venue just after 1pm. The DJ’s were set up outside and they were already pumping out the scooter sounds.

The Merseyside Mini Club had joined us, but unfortunately the Phoenix Classic Car Club and the Vintage Motorcycle Club sent their apologies as their members were reluctant to bring their vehicles out due to the threatening weather conditions. It seems that Scooterists are made of sterner stuff !

 

 ‘Time to award the LSC trophies’

Our main trophy is the James Raybould memorial trophy. Jimmy as we knew him, was a staunch member of our club along with his son. Sadly, we lost Jimmy some years ago due to illness. Derry Keane  (proprietor of Franklyn Motors, Speke) and his family donated a trophy to be awarded in Jimmy’s memory. It is not awarded lightly and is given in Jimmy’s memory to someone who epitomises the spirit of scootering in some way. This year’s winner was Dave ‘Marble’ Johnson from Cloud 9 SC Birkenhead. Dave has had two very serious accidents whilst riding his scooter, and yet he got back in the saddle and regularly rides his scooter both at home and abroad. If that wasn’t enough, Dave also organises mid-week rideouts for us all to enjoy. Well done Dave, very well deserved.

 

 

 

Although our main charity was the All Together Now organisation, a donation was given to the Marfan Trust on behalf of a young boy named Tyler. There was also an impromptu sale of stickers from our visiting Irish friends from the Mustafa Beer Scooter Club, with the proceeds again going to help young Tyler. Thank you Mustafa’s, that was very a very kind gesture.

The All Together Now organisation was set up to help everyone (particularly those with disabilities or long term health issues) to achieve their goals in life.  A cheque for £850 was presented to Tom Dowling from the proceeds of donations and raffle monies that were so generously raised by all the visitors and venue staff alike. Thank you all. Tom himself told us all how he and his friends were ambushed and shot by bandits in Iran 40 years ago. Tom was shot between the shoulder blades, as a result of which he is now paralysed. Despite this Tom had a very successful career as a journalist with the local newspaper, the Liverpool Echo, and has championed the rights of disabled people for many years. He really is an inspirational person and is the driving force behind the charity, which produces a regular free tabloid newspaper outlining all the news and events that the charity are involved with. You can get a copy from most Doctor’s surgeries, supermarkets, garden centres and a whole host of other outlets.

A thank you note from our ‘El Presitente’ Ernie –

Well,  what can I say about our weekend Summer Party? but simply FANTASTIC!

Big thanks to the Lads and Ladies (MUSTAFA BEER ‘S C) our friends from across the Irish Sea.

A cheque for £150 will be going to Marfan (registered charity) to help little Tyler fight his battle against cancer, Courtesy of LSC and Mustafa Beer SC

A big thank you to the staff at Alder Sports Club and to Dave & Robbie Bell for playing/setting up the music decks.

Thank you to “ROOSTER” you played a blinder!
Not forgetting everyone who made the effort from near and far in making the weekend a great success.

Many thanks to all the friends of LSC who kindly sent in their photos of the event.