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| The view that met the keen shoppers as the shutters slowly rose to reveal us waiting for them. |
Through some excellent networking that one of
our members did [Gary Davies… no relation!] the 99th Garrison was
asked to help promote John Lewis at its Trafford Centre Branch and the 24th
November, 2013 was the chosen day. In
return we were allowed to collect for Dreamflight see. www.dreamflight.org.
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| The full team with our fab crew, Pat, Dave, Rachel and Rachel! |
As the 24th November, was a
Sunday, this meant that the store did not open until 11:30am and meant that we
therefore did not need to be at the venue until 10:30am.
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| Not quite Lord Vader's size or colour! |
On arrival at the store we had to head to its
reception and then go through the rather large staff canteen to a training room
which was to be our base for the day. Joining
me today was Gary and Rachel, John and Pat, Jim, Chris, Dave A, Dave P, Dave S
and Rachel, Alan.
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| A member of our super Crew Team - Rachel. |
As the store was ready to open until
11.30am we were ready in armour and stood behind the shop’s main shutters at
11:25 waiting for them to go up. This
was strange as we could here the “buzz” of the shoppers outside eagerly waiting
to get into the shop to start their Christmas shopping but we knew that they
were in for a shock when they saw us, lined up waiting for them!
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| Love this Christmas looking photo of Boba Fett |
As expected the shutters went up and slowly
we were revealed to the waiting shoppers from the feet up! There were lots of
giggles and gasps and then the camera phones came out for a couple of minutes
before we decided to move them along” at which a large majority of them also
dropped coins into our collection buckets.
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| Arresting Father Christmas! |
We had our own area in the Furniture
Department of the store where our very own backdrop of a Death Star wall had
been set up…. Constructed by own members!
We spent some of the day stood by this posing for photos and some of the
time mingling with shoppers in the store.
This included photos with Father Christmas and many children, some of
whom were more excited to see us than him!
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| Admiring the Centre's Christmas lights as the evening set in. |
We also had one teenage girl come to see us
who was all embarrassed about having a photo taken with us, but when her friend
told us that it was her birthday I started off singing Happy Birthday to her
and the other troopers who were also there at that point then joined in too…
Happy Birthday Danielle!
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| With birthday girl - Danielle. |
We stopped for lunch at about 1:00pm and were
able to use the Staff Canteen. This was subsidised and I got a chicken korma
and poppadom for £1.50! Its not often we
get to eat so cheaply on troops! Lord Vader was so hungry he had two dinners
and a bar of chocolate! Boba Fett was
very healthy with his Roast Beef, Roast Potatoes, and Yorkshire pudding and not
one of his five-a-day in sight! Dave A
had a full roast beef dinner stood up as he had not de-kitted for lunch and
stormtroopers cannot sit down!
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| Resting my feet on a bar stool that cost £335!!! It was sprung though :-) |
We trooped again from 2:00pm until 4:00pm and
were fairly busy/steady. Even the
Furniture department had a bit of a higher footfall than normal as people came
to see us when our presence there was announced on the store’s Tannoy
system. We collected £517.00 and John Lewis also made a donation of £100.00..........for Dreamflight ! Thank you All!!
Once we de-kitted and I had dropped my armour
back into my car, I returned to the store as I had seen a couple of ideal
Christmas presents whilst we had been walking around. Also bumped into Rachel and Dave S in there
and then had a very pleasant cuppa in Starbucks before setting off back home
where I arrived at about 7:30pm remembering that it was actually Sunday and not
Saturday and that I had work the following morning!
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| Its hard work for our crew you know isn't it Dave?!! |
A huge thanks to all the troopers listed
above and Dave, Rachel and Pat for crewing so well. Also, a big thank you to John Lewis and Moira for
inviting us into their store, making a donation and to Gary for making it happen!
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| The obligatory post troop photo! |
