Harrogate Pythons held their Annual Dinner, which is their main fund raising event, at The Old Swan Hotel. Guest speakers were former international players and World Cup Winners Simon Shaw and Mike Tindall. The evening was hosted, for the last time, by Simon Croft who was supported by Terry Crystal.
The evening began with Chairman Julian Tatlow thanking the event’s Main Sponsors for their continued support. He outlined how funds from the event went to support player safety at the club and that as a CASC organisation donations made by guests at fund raising events attract additional contributions from HMRC as Gift Aid.
Simon Shaw was the first to speak. He spoke of his early days of club rugby with the inevitable ‘one liners’ keeping the attentive guests amused. He then went on to cover how his International Career had been affected by a varied disciplinary record with some great stories regarding his opponents and referees.
Mike Tindal stood up to participate in a Q&A session with Terry Crystal. The guests were all wondering what he would cover and what his responses would be. Terry asked, “So, how did a Yorkshire lad meet The Windsors?” A 40 minute answer started, filled with stories of his rugby career, the World Cup preparations and competition and of course his Royal Experience. The room moved from attentive silence to roars of laughter as his stories unfolded. By overwhelming consent the best speaker so far at a Pythons’ Dinner.
“What a brilliant evening once again”, said Julian Tatlow Chairman and organiser. “Both speakers were outstanding and I need to thank our main sponsors this evening for supporting us to get them. Slingsby Gin, Don Controls, Oracle Finance, Ripon Select Foods and Weatheroak have been our regular sponsors and this year JaRose Interiors came on board – I can’t begin to explain how much their generosity means to our club. It’s not all been accounted for yet but it looks like we’ve raised at least £15k”, he added.
The photographer Simon Godsave was sponsored by Teakwood Investments whilst Warehouse Storage Solutions bought every table a bottle of port.
There’s a selection of Simon’s excellent picture below, but you can view many more [Here].
