About the Weekend

From the 12th-18th May we celebrated Children’s Heart Week. This year we had lots of exciting events going on; from Bring a Bear picnics to Parliamentary drop-ins. Two of our most exciting events took place at the end of Children’s Heart week. 13 families were taken on a weekend trip to the bustling borough of Royal Greenwich and a motley crew of CHF supporters helped to close Heart Week at our annual CHF Dragon Boat Challenge.

We kicked off the weekend with our family trip to Greenwich. While our excited families arrived at the Novotel London Greenwich hotel our CHF team were busy planning the events for the weekend. Saturday morning started with an exciting boat trip along the Thames to the famous London Eye. Here the families gathered at a Teddy Bear’s picnic in Jubilee gardens along with their favourite furry friends of course. With full bellies, Team CHF then headed to the London Sea Life Centre Aquarium where they were greeted by some very hungry sharks, not to mention some excitable penguins who just couldn’t wait to show off their moves on the ice! We ended the weekend with a lovely fish and chip supper back at out base hotel where stories were shared and friends were made.

Sunday was the day of our annual Dragon Boat Challenge. Our excited families piled onto a big red open-top bus which took them to Surrey Docks Water sports Centre to take on the Thames.

We kicked off the day with a fantastic Dragon dance from the Pak Mei dragon boat team. Feeling energetic from the dance the first teams were announced; they put on their life jackets, grabbed their oars, listened to our safety briefing and then they were off! The 2014 Dragon Boat Challenge was under way! The day was filled with cheerleaders, rock choirs and magicians along with some very tasty burgers and homemade cakes.

We are very pleased to report that the CHF team did a lot better than they did last year, however the overall winners were the lime green Team BANG! who managed to sail past Kate’s Mates and Pirates of the River for the title of the 2014 Dragon Boat Challenge winners!

We hope everyone enjoyed the weekend’s events just as much as the CHF team did. We sure can see it in all of the faces in our official pictures from the weekend.

Check them out below:

CHF Family Weekend & Dragon Boat Challenge Gallery

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