ACI UK Charity Golf Day – 26th April 2010 at Brocket Hall, Herts

The 12th Annual ACI charity golf day took place on April 26th and for the second consecutive year was held in the splendid surroundings of Brocket Hall. The event was, once again, very well attended with 21 teams taking part, and the weather was kind to us, although not quite the lovely sunshine of the previous few days.

This year's event saw the teams gathering for a hearty breakfast in preparation for their exertions, and despite the Monday morning M25 traffic doing its best to derail proceedings, we tee'd off only a few minutes after the scheduled shotgun start at 8.30.

This year's competition was further enhanced by the addition of buggies for all competitors, kindly sponsored by FlexTrade, which sped up proceedings nicely. However with the weather a little breezy and overcast the sight of Andy Durrant proudly riding the UBS sponsored roving refreshment buggy proved a welcome sight and bought a whole new meaning to their role as ‘liquidity providers’ !!!

We were very fortunate once again to benefit from the patronage of M25 Audi who generously sponsored the 'hole-in-one' prizes. Our star prize proudly displayed on the 9th hole was a brand new gleaming black Audi A3 Cabriolet just waiting to be driven away by a lucky winner, plus there were also golf breaks at The Belfry and Le Meridien Penina, and a set of TaylorMade irons to complete the prizes on offer for that ultimate golfing shot! Although sadly no one had a hole in one, Tom Nagle from the Saxo team came closest, and I am sure was very pleased with his nearest the pin prize of an Audi TT for the weekend courtesy of M25 Audi.

Over on the 11th the Longest Drive competition was underway, and in an ironic twist it was won by Paddy Osborn from the CLS team. He was presented with a lovely Waterford crystal vase kindly sponsored by his old employers TraderMade.

On completion of the round players were welcomed back into the clubhouse and greeted with pre-lunch refreshments kindly provided by EC1 Partnersin Brocket Hall's Oak Room. Once everyone had a drink in their hand it was time for Linda Lusardi to present the Sunshine Coach to the children and staff from Beacon Hill School in Essex. This as usual was a great moment. The funds raised on the day provided a 17 seater minibus with tail lift which the carers said would make such an enormous difference to the children and staff at the school, and their genuine gratitude was clear for all to see. We then all raised our glasses and toasted them on their way.

Following a splendid lunch we moved on to the presentations of the prizes, and the winners of the main event were the Northern Trust team with an impressive 96 points, and they each received an engraved glass trophy, a set of Villeroy & Boch champagne flutes and a bottle of vintage champagne as well as the adulation of all at the event!

In second place with a very respectable 93 points were the Progress Apama team, who each took home Villeroy & Boch glass water jugs, and in third place were Barclays Capital with healthy 92 points, and each received a set of Waterford crystal shot glasses.

As in previous years there was a great selection of raffle prizes which further enhanced the funds raised on the day and the committee is grateful to Four Season Fairways, Barracuda FX, Multidata Installations, Martin Spurr, Logicscope, The Mango Tree Restaurant SW1, Tesco, Golfbreaks.com and Le Meridien Penina who all generously donated prizes.

Finally before closing proceedings we had some fantastic auction prizes which this year included one year's membership to ClubGT's Supercar and Performance car club with access to their fleet of cars, donated by Chris Burbidge of ClubGT (www.clubgt.co.uk), a fourball and lunch at Brocket Hall Golf Club, donated by Andrew Hepburn of Brocket Hall(www.brocket-hall.co.uk), a Bang & Olufsen telephone, donated by Andy Widger of B&O Winchmore Hill N21 , and finally a limited edition Aleksandr Orlov meerkat soft toy donated by the Variety Club(www.varietyclub.org.uk)

The total raised from the day exceeded £22,900 and just surpassed our target, which meant we were able to fund the coach entirely from the event.

Already the committee are in discussions about next year's event and we will work diligently to raise even more money for this great cause.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND GENEROSITY

The Organising Committee
Alan Clarke
Alan Attwood
Al Crane
Andy Durrant
David Hastings
Sue Attwood

The following messages are from our sponsors without whose support this would not have been possible; please do take the time to review and follow up with any that may be of interest to you, mentioning you heard ACI-UK as this will help us in future years securing support, and you may be able to get a good deal!!!!

M25 Audi– M25 Audi were delighted to help sponsor theACIGolf Day. If you are interested in more information about any of our range of cars please contact us via www.m25audi.co.uk.

FlexTrade–Founded in 1996, FlexTrade Systems Inc. is the industry pioneer and global leader in broker-neutral algorithmic trading platforms and execution systems for equities, foreign exchange and listed derivatives. For more information please visit www.flextrade.com and www.twitter.com/flextrade.

UBS– One of the leading global FX providers, offers corporate, institutional, public sector and private banking clients a full front to back product range. For more information please visit www.ubs.com/fx.

TraderMade International - The worldwide provider of market leading real-time technical analysis and market commentary solutions were proud to support this year's ACI-UK Charity Golf Day. For more information please visit www.tradermade.com or email sanjay.beri(at)tradermade.com.