Mass egg throwing occurred at Penrith Rugby Union Football Club’s (PRUFC) Family Fun Day, but it was all in a good cause. PRUFC called upon the Lakes Free Range Egg Company (The Lakes) to create an egg throwing event, it was just one of the activities that helped raise around £2,750 to bolster funds that cover the running costs of the club.
This is the second year that ‘The Lakes’ has supported the event so they introduced a new angle. As well as donating eggs for the ‘throw and catch a raw egg’ activity they also invited Lakes’ retail customers along, challenging them to throw and offering a donation to the winning retailers charity of choice. Fiona Bowness and Alison Morton were the successful supermarket team from Sainsbury’s with a winning distance of 21 metres – their chosen charity is Eden Mencap.
Sadly, the distance of 21 metres fell well short of the overall winners – Kriss Bratton and Pale Tuilagi who threw 41.2metres, though this is still short of the world record – a staggering 98m. The longest throw by a junior team was from Penrith’s Bailey Potts (11) and Jack Graham (10) who nudged ahead of the Sainsbury’s team, while other ‘couple’ teams used the opportunity to settle a few scores!
Other activities during the day included Zorb football, paintball, a penalty shoot out, face painting and a BBQ, with a hog roast in the evening.
Organiser Spike Johnson said “the club has a healthy membership – we have over 250 juniors making up thirteen junior teams aged from under seven’s to under eighteen’s and there are three senior teams too. Our facilities cost around £250,000/year to run and we are indebted to our main sponsors, but we still need to raise a lot of money ourselves.
We had great fun with the eggs and are delighted that the team at Lakes Free Range Egg Company has embraced our fun day so much. This year we eggsperimented with different size eggs, the majority didn’t break but those catching really appreciated the plastic poncho’s for protection!”
Mark Gaskin, MD at ‘The Lakes’ said “ To have the opportunity to invite some of our customers along for an egg throwing competition was too good to miss, and it was all very friendly, though some had better aim than others. We’d like to think the egg throwing competition added some extra Fun to the Fundraising and it was a great way to make more people aware of the event. It’s great to support a club that encourage people to be healthy, active and eat a good diet. And of course, exercise and fresh air are very important – for the rugby teams and for our hens.”