The evening of Friday, August 9^th belonged entirely to the Macmillan nurses.

The event was a virtual sell-out raising well in excess of the £2,180 shown on the presentation cheque, as we went on to auction a signed West Ham United football (£50) and continued to receive donations for dance requests in addition to pledges which have yet to be redeemed.

Although the doors were not scheduled to open until 7 o'clock, queues started to form from 6:30, so we opened up 10 minutes early.

The Castlepoint Mayor came along to open the proceedings and surprised us all by turning up in full cowboy gear (plus Mayoral chain). Ten out of ten to the Mayor for entering into the spirit of the evening. He was even spotted (and pictured) strutting his stuff on the dance floor (pictures are now in the Tulsa Shuffle Photo Album.)

The picture on the left shows the Macmillan representatives receiving the cheque, with the 4 DJ's (in hats from left to right) being Frank (Spectrum Disco), Paul (Applejacks Disco), Tim (Crazy Horse Line Dance Club) and Mick (Tulsa Shuffle Line Dance Club).

There was a declared policy of playing 'floor fillers' throughout the entire evening - Paul, Tim and myself (Mick) had all met in a pub (where else!!) and using a mixture of club playlists, experience, nostalgia and whimsy put together a playlist for the evening.

This was, of course, changed on the night as we had so many requests coming in - apologies to those people placing a request and not having it played, but there were far too many to fit in during one evening.

Anyway, our master plan worked well with the floor being packed all night.

Mr. Denny Austin gave us half an hour of excellent live entertainment and, making their (impromptu) world debut were his backing dancers (The Foam Fingers). Denny was as surprised as everyone else but joined in and contributed to the fun.

Just prior to the 9 till late session (after the raffle), there was the official introduction of that now internationally recognised supergroup 'The Foam Fingers' a.k.a. Paul, Tim & Mick before they went on stage to host the remainder of the evening.

Incidentally, the raffle prizes number in excess of 70 and were valued (conservative 'wet finger' guess) at £750+. I didn't really have a chance to peruse them all, but there were, in addition to the usual wine and cuddly toys, theatre tickets donated by the Cliffs Pavilion, a gift Voucher from Tesco, A meal (including wine) from a local country club, a fully planted garden wheelbarrow, etc., etc. We'd like to say a very big thank you to everyone who donated prizes for the raffle and to apologise for not being able to mention you all here.

A great number of positive and favourable comments were received throughout the evening, with a number of people praising the exceptionally friendly party atmosphere saying it was the best 'do' they'd been to since they can't remember when.

Watch this space, as, just when you think you're safe, we will return. Next time perhaps for a different charity.