Sunday 18 November - 'All that jazz'

‘All that jazz’ raised over £3,000 for Poole lifeboat station on 18 November at Sandbanks Hotel.

It was blowing a gale outside, the ice cold rain was relentless and the waves were crashing onto the beach by the hotel. In spite of this, inside the hotel the air was electric and a jazz band kept the room buzzing and the audience completely captivated.

Led by Chris Traves (son of our wonderful fundraising Chairman Brian Traves), a band of six consummate musicians, who all play in musicals in the West End, played amazing jazz – they all generously gave up their spare time and only day off to do this special fundraising gig.

They played many old favourites and lots of requests, keeping the packed appreciative listeners, young and old, entertained for over 2½ hours. Feet were tapping and hands clapping when ‘All the saints’ came marching in and Richard played his sousaphone. The band then all changed seats and instruments and after the interval, dashingly clad Richard Pite ‘reached out’ to the audience quite literally with his growing arms and became a human ‘beat box’! It was evident that everyone enjoyed themselves and some of the crew were lucky enough to be there, putting their pagers on silent!

The money also came rattling in with the superb tombola and RNLI Christmas cards and calendars that were on sale.

The fundraising group are delighted to have raised such a huge amount, which will go towards paying for the training of two of our new recruits.

We are also very grateful to Tailor Made Estate Agents who sponsored the event for the second year running and FJB Butterworth Hotels for letting us use their splendid venue.

A big thank you too to Chris and the band members for making such a brilliant afternoon of a bleak miserable day.