SEAFORDE Working Vintage Club’s Annual Rally and Rural Celebration Day will be held on Saturday September 3 and will be the Club’s first rally since the Covid restrictions in 2020.
Many thanks for all who supported the club’s road run earlier this year despite the very wet day.
The 2022 Rally will be held in the Seaforde Estate with the entrance on the Demesnes Road, Seaforde, Co. Down. It is quite a few years since the annual rally was held in the estate and Club members would like to express their appreciation to Forde family for generously allowing the use of this beautiful venue.
Thanks also to Noel and Richard Kane for allowing the Club to cut the corn needed for threshing and for allowing the use of vintage working machinery.
Fortunately the weather has been reasonably settled since the corn was cut and club members have been busy stooking the sheaves and building them into weatherproof barts ready for the threshing display. Some sheaves will be saved for a threshing display at Castlewellan Show in 2023.
The Celebration Day will commence at around 11.00am and will be well signposted in the area.
Exhibitors and members of the public are asked to take care on the main access road and obey traffic instructions. Car owners, both vintage/classic and members of the public, are asked to take care on the access lane and in the rally field as some parts of the field are quite stony.
The celebration day will include working demonstrations with threshing, vintage tractor and classic car displays, and stationary engines. It is hoped to have a display of Land Rovers of all ages at the rally and owners of this classic 4×4 are invited to bring their vehicles along.
Vintage and classic tractors with working machinery are especially welcome as there will be an area set aside for ploughing with small Ferguson-type two furrow ploughs.
Stall holders and vendors are welcome as usual.
This year the Rally and Celebration Day will support the vital work of Mourne Mountain Rescue. The Mourne Mountain Rescue Team was established in 1962 and was the first mountain rescue team in Ireland, being followed by the Kerry Mountain Rescue Team and the An Óige Mountain Rescue Team founded in 1966.
Based at the foot of Slieve Donard in the coastal town of Newcastle, the Mourne Mountain Rescue Team is made up entirely of volunteers from a wide variety of backgrounds who live close to the Mourne Mountains. All have some form of mountaineering/hillwalking background and volunteer their time, expertise and support to those in need in the mountains.
All operations and callouts are currently conducted from the PSNI Station and they are on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In an emergency dial 999 ask for Police then Mountain Rescue.
A substantial amount of training in advanced first aid, technical rope work and search management is undertaken by all team members. The Team maintains an operational membership of around 35 people in order to provide this service and are a registered charity, totally dependent on donations from the public.
It costs around £35,000 per year to maintain the service which must be raised through their own efforts and help from the general public is vital to maintain the rescue service so we hope to see a good turnout of exhibiters and spectators on Saturday September 3 to support this very worthy cause.
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