Saturday 29th June saw the return of Best Foot Forward to Aldersley Stadium in Wolverhampton. The weather was kind, not too hot and no rain, perfect for runners and joggers. This year’s Charity Pot stood at £11,700. This is the money donated by our very generous Patrons which is then released to our nominated Charities by completing circuits of the track. The number of Participants this year was a record at 590 people who completed 15,352 laps, another record. Consequently, the Charity Pot was fully released. The nominated charities for 2024 are the Central Youth Theatre, Wolverhampton MS Therapy Centre and the Rotary Charitable Trust.

Participating teams such as Wolverhampton Coronary Aftercare Support Group were also raising funds for their own causes.

As always, our Participants represented a complete cross section of abilities; there were serious runners, endurance runners, joggers, people in wheelchairs, walkers, babies in prams, and many canine supporters. We had the usual queue at 8 am with the runners keen to get on the track. Some of those runners were still there at 8 pm! This year thirty Participants did over 100 laps, another record. DG Makunda Chidrawar and DGE Jane Cooper paid us a visit and did some laps. We had a visit from Councillor Linda Leach, Mayor of Wolverhampton. Rotarians from the other Rotary Clubs in Wolverhampton did some laps for us. Making an event like Best Foot Forward run smoothly requires a lot of work, so our thanks must go to the twenty seven Rotarians who volunteered to help on the day. We also had three helpers who, whilst not Rotarians, put in a lot of work; Carol Lowndes, Alder Allen and Richard Maule-ffinch. Any report on Best Foot Forward would be remiss if it did not thank Geoff and Carol Lowndes and Mike Boyce. Our thanks to them for their hard work organising Best Foot Forward and ensuring the event was so successful. – – – But of course none of this would have happened without our generous Patrons, our backers the James Beattie Trust, the Exprees & Star and the City Council and our Participants, so our grateful thanks go to all of you.

Richard Horrell, Chairman Best Foot Forward Committee.

The Rotary Club of the City of Wolverhampton.