Diane Hunter (pictured). Her ‘Channel No7 2013 Rowing Team’ aims to raise £15,000 for charity
As the co-founder and MD of Yorkshire based companies Apple Vending and Catering Services and York Coffee Systems, not to mention Chair Person of the Refresh U buying group, Diane Hunter is used to being in charge and in control; but this year she’ll be saying ‘goodbye’ to her comfort zone to take the ‘stroke’ seat in a rowing boat that will cross the English Channel aiming to raise £15,000 for charity.
It’s likely to be an epic adventure for the all-female team of friends, who got to know each other at the school gates as their children grew up, and it’s sure to be a lot of laughs: however, as is the case with many charity efforts, the project has its roots in a personal tragedy.
On 30th December last, fourteen year-old William Blackburn got up and complained of flu-like systems. The young sportsman – all six-feet-four of him – took a paracetamol and went back to bed. When he re-emerged at noon, his mother noticed a rash developing on his skin and, taking no chances, called an ambulance.
William was well enough to walk into the ambulance, and well enough to walk out of it at the other end, but by tea-time, he had died; a victim of meningitis.
The heartbreaking death devastated the Blackburn family and left the group of ‘friends at the gate’ completely numb, until one of ‘the girls’, Julie Palin, unilaterally decided ‘we have to do something’. She enlisted the support of the rest of the gang, and the search was on to find a project that would raise money, in William’s name, for Meningitis UK and also for The Children’s Heart Foundation, (as Julie’s son had been diagnosed with a heart defect).
‘Julie had seen a cross-channel rowing effort on ‘Comic Relief’ and we decided that’s what we’d do’, Diane said. The fact that none of the women had ever rowed before, let alone in the sea, was not seen as an impediment to success… And so it was that the ‘ladies who lunch’ (Diane excepted!) became the ‘ladies who train’. Every Saturday morning, for three hours, the team, dubbed the ‘Channel No7 2013 Rowing Team, can be found on the River Calder in the company of a group of enthusiastic volunteers from Wakefield Sea Cadets, going through their paces.
‘The Sea Cadets have been brilliant’, Diane said. ‘They’ve given up their time for free every week and they take us out on the river, they shout and bawl, they look at their stopwatches and make us believe that we can do it. They’ll be taking us out on the sea at Filey, when we’re a bit more accomplished, and they’re even going to join us ‘on the day’ as a second support boat. I don’t think we could do it without them.’
The ‘Channel No7 2013 Rowing Team’ has already sampled the boat they’ll use for their heroic attempt. It’s the same one that the Comic Relief team used, and the girls got the feel of her when they received their basic training in Portsmouth.
Weather permitting, the ladies’ appointment with destiny will take place on Monday, 24 June.
With training well underway, the focus now is on fund raising. The principal fundraiser is a dinner, to be held at the Cedar Court Hotel in Wakefield on 26 April, for which some 300 tickets have already been sold. ‘We’ve been lucky in that people have donated items to be raffled or auctioned at the dinner’, Diane said, ‘and I’m personally delighted that N&W has given us a state-of-the-art coffee machine that we can auction.’ The machine, a Koro Max, will be offered to the highest bidder via York Coffee Systems web site. ‘It needs to go to a company, rather than to a personal bidder who might get overexcited on the night!’ Diane said, and she’s right: Koro Max might be one of the ‘sexiest’ machines on the market but it’s a bit big for the average domestic kitchen! ‘We think that the web site is the best place to do it, all I have to do now is let people know its there!’
In that respect, Diane, Planet Vending is delighted to help out! Click here to go to the York Coffee Systems web site! And whilst you’re at it, why not sponsor the ladies via Virgin by clicking here? We wish the ‘Channel No7 2013 Rowing Team’ every possible success and we’ll do what we can to keep PV readers in the loop.
