Ducks away . . . popular fundraiser returns

Five Buck a Duck Race shenanigans. Pictures by Paul Rickard

Life Education Trust is celebrating the  successful return of the Five Buck a Duck Race and looking ahead to the next one.

“After expenses, we have netted around $22,000, but we have yet to make donations to Rotary and the Gisborne Yacht Club for their help,” said Pat Seymour, who chairs Life Education Gisborne, East Coast and Wairoa.

“We planned to sell close to a hundred corporate ducks at $200 each, and we sold 90, so there’s $18,000 for a start.”

The little yellow ducks — with numbers that corresponded with tickets people bought for $5 each — covered the expenses of the event, she said.

Proceeds  would go to the operation of Life Education Trust Gisborne, East Coast and Wairoa, one of the 32 regional organisations around New Zealand working with schools to educate and empower children to make healthy choices.

This was the first duck race — since the Rotary Club of Gisborne West staged the first one in March 2006 — that Life Education had taken the lead in organising. It had been almost three years since the last duck race.

“We were really pleased,” Pat Seymour said.

“The weather didn’t help but we had a reasonable turnout. It didn’t rain while the event was on. Children were able to use the bouncy castle without slipping. We had cupcakes for sale and a sausage sizzle. Families with children enjoyed themselves.

“Rotary have always run it, and they asked us to lead it, with their support.

“Rotary and Gisborne Yacht Club managed the river work, and they have offered to do it again. We really appreciate that.

“We’ll have a team talk with them about the timing of the next one. It’s driven by the tides.”

She said yacht club youngsters and friends on boards and kayaks did a good job rounding up the corporate ducks  and getting them away from the Taruheru River retaining wall and into the tidal flow.

And at the end of the yellow-duck race, they helped retrieve the much-faster-moving  small ducks and bring them in.

The first three corporate ducks were those of Kevin Hollis Glass, Turihaua Angus and Pultron Composites.

Full results will be published in The Gisborne Herald tomorrow.

■ The race is a game of chance in which numbered yellow ducks are dropped (and larger, corporate ducks are placed) into the river, to be carried by the  outgoing tide to a finish line near the Marina Park boat ramp. Prizes go to those holding tickets with numbers corresponding with those on the top-placed yellow and corporate ducks.