The first picture shows me presenting the Terry Carter Award for Swimming to Ciara McKenna.  In the background you can see Susi Williams, the human dynamo who both runs SOSA and acted as compere for the evening.  I like the way that the photographer has got her break-dancing while I have a flying saucer coming out of my head…

Ciara’s dad by the way raised a fantastic amount of money for SOSA by organising a charity golf day.  All sorts of people dig deep as volunteers and in raising money to make sure that SOSA can run on an absolute shoe-string.  One of the other people asked to present the prizes (much more deservedly than me) was Cllr Maxine Crawley, last year’s mayor, who had made SOSA one of her mayoral charities for the year.

The second picture shows Mitchell Camp who won the Rowland Shield for being the best exemplar in terms of sportsmanship, commitment, dedication and sheer enthusiasm of all that the Special Olympics stand for.  It shines out of him, just as it shone out of all those present.

If you want more information about SOSA, I have blogged about them previously at http://bit.ly/tLDLPf

PS The title of this posting is SOSA’s mission statement – it sums up their ethos beautifully

Given the soggy and bleak weather conditions, I could only admire the participants as they ran up and down in front of the Old Town Hall.

As well as a “Roman Catholic priest” in full soutane, there were some brightly clad Grove House pancake flippers with the colour pink much in evidence.  Also good to see former mayor Alison Steer.

Perhaps Gordon Brown should have proposed a new voting system based on pancake racing? – crepe flip-flops rather than the policy kind?