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On a lovely sunny day in May, 150 of us assembled for a sold-out lunch at the Royal Thames Yacht Club hosted with her usual professionalism and humour by Angela Rippon. It was a celebration the Queen’s jubilee – so most wore the appropriate theme colours of purple or red, white and blue. Everyone looked splendid, but Paul Clist and Sue Simons outdid us all with their suits made from lots of union flags.

The Phoenix Fun Events committee gathered for a team photo which is on the homepage of the website.

The tables were wonderfully decorated with union flag bunting, balloons and glitter decorations, and there were smart notebooks as table gifts, kindly provided by Sally Allen Gerard of Sally Allen Fashions.

The guest speaker was Dickie Arbiter – resplendent in one of his garish ties – who entertained us with an informative account of his time as press secretary to the Queen. Warm, interesting, discreet and amusing. A lovely fellow, with kind reminiscences of a tricky job.

Richard Pinner conducted the auction with his usual aplomb. Bob the Cat Bevan made us all laugh when he and Angela Rippon did the raffle.

After lunch, the singer Adam Green led us in a variety of patriotic songs which had everyone standing, waving flags with a generally buoyant atmosphere.

An excellent day where £10,000 was raised for our three chosen charities. A huge thank you to all of you who supported the event, and a special thanks to the auction winners. We hope you enjoy the prizes.