Manila Boat Club

Start time was 2pm but given the cloudy weather, the 125 kids and their guardianns guests were slow to arrive. It was not until about 3pm that we started the games. Aux LCdr Jenny Rojales brought a friend of her niece Audrey Picatoste, to act as MC for the games and what a magnificent job she did. I feel that the games are the one thing we can improve on and am thinking that next year maybe we should include a couple of clowns.

Unfortunately, we had a shower of rain early on and it was "all hands-on deck’ to move the tables and chairs back inside. Thanks to the help of PCG, PCGA applicants, some parents and Ronel, this was done very quickly and the games resumed. As usual there was great excitement jumping for candies from the pabitim and trying to break the palayok. Soon the children had worked up an appetite and they eagerly lined up for their Jollibee meal. There was plenty for them to eat and after receiving their gifts, most made their way home. So, by about 4:45, the party was effectively over.

Some guests managed to turn up just before 5pm to claim their gifts and food – not exactly in the spirit of things and makes me want to consider banning entry after a certain time next year, like 3:30pm.

Because of a lot of ‘no-shows’, probably due to weather, there was plenty of Jollibee left over. We took advantage of this and went looking for homeless people sleeping on the street and distributed what was left to them. This was of course very gratefully received and eagerly consumed.