I hope you don't mind me contacting you early this year but early signs are that this is going to be a cracking year and we are already being asked for and receiving entry forms.

I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the pre Raft Race party on the Saturday afternoon/evening at the Waterton where you can drop off your raft and where we are arranging free musical entertained in marquee. We are looking into making it an open mic night and have managed to get Andy Pelling to dust off his decks to DJ on the Saturday night. If you know of any local bands or singers that would like to showcase their talents let me know.

This year we are raising money for the South Lincs Dementia Support group and the Exotic Pet Refugee. It would be great if every rafter set themselves a challenge to raise just £100. Just think if we manage to get 50 rafts with on average 6 rafters all raising sponsorship. If the weather is kind to us this popular event attracts thousands of people to the Deepings and we will also have teams of collectors so I would like to make this a record year for charity fund raising.

We are just able to release through local businesses our Deepings Raft Race wristbands in blue and yellow. All funds raised will be going to charity and running the Raft Race on an annual basis.

I hope you are all going to be creative this year as I think we have a best theme Cartoon Characters and the public will be voting for the Best Dressed Raft via our Raft Race App. This year we are also running a selfie competition for the public so we are hoping everyone is going to get on board with dressing up.

Kevin
Chair of the Deepings Raft Race Committee