Grahamstown 11 Round Table — cycling, cricket, steak rolls and a shower of sixes
For Grahamstown Round Table 11 (RT11), it has been a busy latter half of 2022 with numerous fundraising, fellowship, and community engagement events and projects on the go.
The biggest highlight for the Club during this time has been another bumper DKMS Sunflower Day. With fundraising for blood cancer and blood disorder testing, tissue typing, and raising awareness as the mission for DKMS, Tabler Dudu Nyakotyo has turned RT11 into national leaders in selling ‘topes’ for the past several years.
This year RT11 raised over R37,000 to support people with leukaemia and other blood disorders. Special thanks must go to the staff and learners of Graeme College who on 23 September held a special Sunflower Day walk in support of the annual initiative.
With dozens of boys taking part, this has become a valued event in the community calendar.
The very next day on the 24 September, RT11 Tablers set up a food stall at the Salem 8s cricket tournament hosted by Salem Cricket Club.
Against the backdrop of the church and school hall, and under a near hailstorm of cricket balls clearing the boundary rope, Tablers Elrico de Bruyn (vice chairman), Grant Gordon (secretary), and Greg
Wilmot (chairman) cooked up breakfast buns, roosterbroods, and steak rolls for players and spectators
through the course of the day’s action. With a wary eye on the shower of sixes coming off the field, RT11 was able to raise over R3,500 to supplement their Welfare coffers for distribution in the Makhanda community.
While the rest of his peers enjoyed a leisurely Saturday, Elrico de Bruyn saddled up for the Rhodes Health Suite annual Cyclathon on 8 October.
With R2,000 being donated by RT11 towards the Queen of Hearts congenital heart disease project, Elrico tallied-up 81km over three consecutive Spinning classes.
At the time of writing, there was a lot to look forward to on the RT11
calendar with their annual Charity Golf Day taking place on Friday 21 October at The Belmont Golf Club.
On 5 November is the Oldenburgia Trail Run taking place from PJ Olivier Hoërskool where RT11 will be taking charge of water tables along the various routes covering distances 3km, 8km, 15km, and 30km.
Market stalls and registration for the G2C Mountain Bike Race taking place on 6 November will also be on offer.
RT11 will be hosting the EP Area Spring Conference on 18-19 November where Round Tables from the Eastern Cape will be descending on Makhanda.