A R-oar-ing Success!
At Grovelands, we know that a happy relationship takes a lot of work, care and attention, with a pinch of thoughtfulness along the way. So being the ever dutiful wifely types that we are, we had one important anniversary pinned up on the fridge for quite some time, not wanting it to go unnoticed.
Not only were we celebrating a whole year of working successfully with one of our major clients, but also a year sponsoring our Olympic rowing hopeful – Olivia Carnegie-Brown.
We wanted to get everyone together to mark the occasion with something a little different than your ordinary meal or drinks night. Some might struggle to find any meaningful link between competitive rowing and major high street banks, but not our director David Leen. For a man that always thinks outside the box, the connections are endless, and thus was born The Olympic Complaints Event (it will catch on…)
The guests started arriving, and the turnout was fantastic. All attendees were greeted by the honorary Grovelands bouncers Tom and Kieran, and once confirmed on the prestigious guest list they proceeded to catch up with old colleagues and friends.
Beautifully introduced by David, our compère for the evening, Olivia stepped up to the stage to entertain and amaze everyone with the story of her rise within competitive rowing. She set a fantastic example for everyone present with her tale of motivation, modesty, hard work and sheer determination.
However, once challenged to a 100m rowing sprint competition against her, the Grovelanders became a little less humble than Olivia and stepped up to the Concept 2 rowing machine boasting of their own sporting prowess.
First up to attempt to beat Olivia’s time of 19.8 seconds was our very own Tom Henderson. After announcing Tom as a ‘rippling beast’, our director Mark Davies let slip that Tom had bet him £5 that he would beat her! Despite Tom’s best efforts, it was not to be, and fellow Grovelands bouncer Kieran Ives also fell short of the mark.
Next up was Ben Wilson, who fancied his chances following his maritime adventures in Brighton’s Paddle Round the Pier the previous week. Ben smugly returned to his seat after smashing a time of 16.8 seconds thinking his work was done, and he could return to Sussex a champion. This looked to be the case throughout the night, with many contractors coming up to have a go and narrowly missing Ben’s time.
And then along came Solomon. At a towering 6 ft 11, with legs longer than the rowing machine and an unorthodox technique, Solomon stole Ben’s crown by 0.4 of a second.
We’d like to say a huge thank you to Claire Campbell and Ashleigh Belgrave for the brilliant organisation of such a great evening, and also Mark Davies and David Leen. Not only for their sponsorship of the evening and of Olivia, but for being such cracking hosts.
Ant and Dec, watch out!
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