Last Saturday (20 November), the club hosted its first sporting lunch of the season to raise funds for our Vision 24 campaign to improve the facilities and rebuild the changing rooms at Raleigh Park.

The lunch got underway with a welcome by Chairman, Merv Richards who also awarded 1st XV sponsors, The Worx with a playing shirt as a thank you for their support. Merv then handed over to Sara Palmer from the Vision 24 committee to introduce the campaign to the lunch guests.

Before the sausage & mash was served, there was time for a quick yes/no game for a chance to win a signed Exeter Chiefs ball.

Following a two-course lunch, with the wine (and beer) flowing, proceedings moved on to a great chat with our guest speakers, Exeter Chiefs legends Kai Horstmann & Carl Rimmer who gave us a great insight into life with the Chiefs and also some great advice on success and how to achieve it.

Afterwards, the pair hosted a Q&A session to answer burning questions from around the room.

Onto the auction, which was kindly hosted by Scott Gray of 24/7 Property Auctions where there were some top quality lots on offer, including signed rugby shirts, 4-ball golf vouchers, vouchers for local restaurants and many items in between.

The afternoon was topped off with a spectacular game of rugby on the field, with the Withies pulling off the performance of the season so far with a 36-0 win over fourth-placed Torquay Athletic.

Overall, a spectacularly enjoyable afternoon, which was incredibly successful in it's mission to raise money to improve the facilities for all that use the club.

With your incredible generosity, we raised just over £8,000 in the auction and look to have raised over £10,000 in total for Vision 24. THANK YOU!!

It has to be said though, that these events cannot take place without the amazing people that spared their time to volunteer and make the event run smoothly. To the organising committee that put the plans into place and to the Chefs and members of the Withy Walking Rugby side who put together our amazing meal; to the members of our Withy Juniors who donned their shirts and ties to act as our waiters for the afternoon. Huge thanks to Scott Gray for auctioning off the lots and to Kai and Carl for coming along and entertaining us for the afternoon.

Finally, a huge thank you to everyone that came along and supported the event. Your contributions and support means so much to us and we cannot wait to be able to show you the finished article as we enter our centenary year in 2024!