Our Honorary President, John Inverdale, hosted the evening having left the 60th birthday party of Sports Report, the BBC radio show with which he has been closely connected. We are very grateful to you, John, for giving up such a special occasion to be with us.

It was our first Sportsman’s Dinner that we made a black tie event, and our girls made sure that all the Spoon bow ties that we had for the evening were sold – indeed orders were taken for more which were despatched the following day. Clearly there were not many attending who could resist the charm of our girls from Stradbrooke – we thank them for their hard work in recruiting new members and selling raffle tickets as well! More young ladies were about showing off items in the silent auction during the dinner and successful bids were made for most of the items on offer. Thank you to all of our very generous guests. Financially the evening raised substantial funds to enable us to support more projects in Surrey for disadvantaged children - and Brian Moore received a standing ovation for his speech. Plans for the 2009 dinner are already under way – watch this space and book early!!