The Rotaract Club of Woking

PRESS RELEASE: Woking Rotaract Club raises £728 at Charity Hypnotist Evening

Woking Rotaract Club, a social club for people aged 18 to 30, held a Charity Hypnotist Evening which raised £728 for Disability Challengers, a local charity providing play, leisure and respite to disabled children and young people

Members from Rotaract and Rotary District 1140 gathered at the Hoebridge Golf Centre in Old Woking for an evening of close-up magic, mind reading, amazing memory recall and finally an hour-long hypnotist show with volunteers from the audience.

As the guests arrived and socialised our multi-skilled entertainer Chris Hare amazed them with close-up magic tricks and astounding mind reading. Members of Woking Rotaract circulated selling raffle tickets and special playing cards - Chris later memorised the names and birthdays of the card owners who were then entered into a special prize draw.

After dinner, Natalie Walters from the charity Disability Challengers gave a quick talk about the work of the charity and where all the money raised would be going. She explained that play is an essential learning activity for all children, enforcing important life skills such as communication, co-ordination, motor and social skills, and that often disabled children are excluded from participating in challenging, exciting and adventurous play - either because mainstream recreational facilities fail to cater for particular needs, or because of prejudice or simply a lack of understanding in the community at large. Disability Challengers aims to fill this gap by providing suitable leisure opportunities for all children.

Then Chris turned on the charm and persuaded people to volunteer to be hypnotised. Twelve people stepped forward and Chris hypnotised them in front of the audience, gently getting them to relax their bodies and minds as they gradually fell under his spell... Soon they were lying on a beach under a hot sun, rubbing sun block into themselves, and then into each other!

As the music rapidly changed they each played a different instrument in a band, then danced the river dance and milked cows. They were told that their neighbours' shoes were phones which they had to answer, then that they were James Bond hunting for a spy amongst the audience! They then had to dance with someone from the audience, which was all very nice until their shoes started ringing! We were then graced with star performances from Elvis and Madonna, and treated to an impromptu ballet. The blokes were then made to believe that their two-veg were loudly shouting their inner-most secrets to the audience!

Finally after providing an hour of laughs, the exhausted volunteers were 'woken up'. They had no recollection about what they'd been doing, and thought they'd only been on the stage for 10 minutes.

Notes: Woking Rotaract

Photograph

- Ends -

← Back