Lowestoft officer raises £2K for local charity

Inspector Claire Simons, based at Lowestoft police, along with two other teammates, took part in the 2024 Veterans Honour Ral­ly, raising over £2,000 for the Lord Kitchener’s Memo­rial Home charity in Lowestoft, winning the event as well.

The team of three, called ‘The Pink Ladies’, drove over 1,200 miles in five days, starting from the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire, then to Skegness, Lowestoft, Brighton, Torquay, and finishing the race in Rhyl, whilst undertaking challenges along the way.

The old 07’ Freelander with over 240k on the clock the team had proved its worth and did them proud, helping them to cross the finish line, travelling for around nine hours a day.

Claire said: “At Skegness, we entered and left by the race­way and got to drive around the circuit, which was pret­ty awesome and in Rhyl, we were given a victory parade down the seafront and formed a rally carnival parade hosted by the town as our finale.

Each day, racers were given a team race card and a team sheet with clues to locations where they had tasks to com­plete and random trivia thrown in via Whatsapp throughout the day. Points were awarded for the challenges undertaken and bonus points given for innovation and team-spirit.

At the challenge points they had to take pictures of them­selves there and the more team cards present, the more points the teams received, so the additional challenge was coordinating arrival, or traveling in convoy with other teams.

The other competitors included serving soldiers from the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) and a range of other veterans and their supporters.

In total, Claire and her team raised over £2,000 for the Lord Kitchener’s Charity, a place where all three volun­teer as members of the sponsorship committee. Kitchen­er’s provides accessible accommodation and discounted breaks for serving military, retired veterans, blue light ser­vices, and their families.

They also host blue light and veterans’ breakfasts and hold a monthly drop-in service. The Pink Ladies also raised a further £500 for the Honour Rally sponsored charities which included a Vets help hub in Weymouth that they detoured too to show their sup­port.

Claire said: “Whilst it was a lot of fun, it was also tiring, but there was an uplifting and rewarding side to it too as everyone was so selfless. We met some amazing people with incredible stores so winning wasn’t the positive out­come, being part of it was!”