On Saturday 27th February, the familiar brightly coloured tabards of Douglas Rotary Club members will be seen around the TT Course.
After last year's successful ride out, which raised ?2,024, the hope is to exceed this amount and also beat last year's 283 bikes. The objective is to raise funds that will help towards the complete eradication of Polio, a disease that even recently was responsible for killing or paralysing half a million people each year.
The Club will be organising a unique opportunity for bikers to take part in a parade lap around the world's most famous road racing course.
A ?5 charitable donation will give the bikers a chance to meet some of the great names of road racing. Hot refreshments, kindly supplied by Mannvend, will await the returning riders and pillions.
Every biker will receive a free commemorative t-shirt kindly supplied by Manx Gas to celebrate their involvement and also receive a raffle ticket to win some small prizes.
The event starts with everyone gathering at the Grandstand at 10.00am for a start of 10.30am.
Commenting on the Club’s ride out, Leslie Guthrie, President of Douglas Rotary Club, says, "This event is a unique opportunity for anyone with a love for two wheels to join in and say with pride ‘I helped towards the eradication of a crippling and life threatening disease’.
"We would love to set a new record for the largest number of Manx riders to gather on the course at one time outside of TT and make this a truly memorable day."
He continues, "Rotary is ‘leading the charge’ to wipe out this horrific disease in the last four countries and to ensure it never comes back either there or, indeed, here in the UK. Rotary is the volunteer arm of a world-wide partnership dedicated to eradicating polio, working with the World Health Organisation (WHO), United Nations Children’s’ Fund (UNICEF), the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), national governments around the world and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
"The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has been extraordinarily generous in agreeing to match whatever Rotary raises globally to help accelerate the eradication of this disease.
"The battle against polio has been waged on many fronts for decades and never has the final victory against it been so close as it is now.
"It is a victory which can be won with just two tiny drops of vaccine, an army of dedicated volunteers and modern technology. We hope that the people of the Isle of Man will come out and support us on 27th February so, together, we can end polio now."
Polio is a highly contagious disease for which there is no known cure. It is carried only by the human body and easily passed from person to person. Most commonly affected are children under 5 years of age, with flu-like symptoms as the first signs of onset. Those who survive polio are usually paralysed.
