You wouldn’t think that the chance to send a group of volunteers down to a nearby lake would be such a big thing, but trust me, it is an opportunity that a charity like The Keepers cannot afford to turn down. That’s because Tortworth Lake is a truly stunning local beauty spot that you can only access one day a month and for only part of the year. It was once owned by the “big house” Tortworth Court (now a De Vere hotel and well worth a visit) but the lake is now owned by Tortworth Estate who very kindly share it to the public and allow local charities to raise funds through the provision of food and drink to walkers.

It was our second opportunity to host down at the lake - in 2024 we had been extremely lucky with the weather, raised a significant sum of money and we hoped we could summon up a successful repeat performance. To do that though we knew we had to do a lot of planning, raise a small army of volunteers, put in a considerable amount of work and pray for some sunshine.

We have a fundraising team at The Keepers that helps lay on a number of events throughout the year and we started planning for our August visit to the lake several months in advance. Like last year, it fell to Sarah to be the central coordinator for the day and she liaised with the landowner and drew up a huge list of things we needed to bring - this included a massive amount of kit, a mountain of volunteer baked cakes, enough tea and coffee to keep the hordes quenched, and pile of meat for our BBQ. Most importantly we also needed volunteers (lots of them, as this would be close to 12 hours worth of work). We were incredibly lucky to have the support and expertise of the local Cotswold Tyndale Rotary club who not only gave us a hand in setting things up and taking things down but let us borrow a big chunk of the kit - urns, BBQ, tables, chairs, gazebos etc.

Thank you Yate Supplies and Cotswold Tyndale Rotary- your help was invaluable! Sara (our volunteer coordinator) took on the task of securing volunteer support for the day. We are extremely fortunate at The Keepers to have about 120 incredibly talented and committed volunteers - they are the lifeblood of the charity but we knew we would need about 70 of them to give up several hours on a weekend. It was a big ask, but Sara is very persuasive and our volunteers are as committed as they come.

As the weekend approached we felt like we were really on top of things - volunteers were assigned to pick up donated rolls (thank you Hobbs House Bakery), pack the van full of kit and the cakes started to arrive in huge quantities (our fantastic volunteer cake makers produce for us throughout the year but they really stepped up production for the big day). Volunteer helpers on the day signed up in their droves - many of which were regular volunteers but we also had family and friends that wanted to lend a hand. It felt like we had planned for everything.

There was only one potential fly in the ointment and it was the only thing completely out of our control - the weather. As much as our social media campaign to “meet us down by the lake” was spreading the word, the weather forecasts were doing their best to keep people away. We consulted as many different weather apps as we could find to try and persuade ourselves that it would be set fair, but even by the morning of the event, the meteorological consensus was that we had a 60-70% chance of rain across a 4 hour period (that straddled lunchtime!).

Although we had discussed the possibility of scaling back the event if the weather was bad, we all felt that we should just plough on (it would be sunny at 4pm apparently!).
Down at the lake before 8am we set up in the dry and because we had done the year before, it felt like a pretty smooth operation. In fact, it meant that the wait till the gates opened to the public at 10am seemed interminable. Would people come? Why can’t they come now when it’s not raining?
Eventually we saw people turn up, often with their dogs, but in the main they went straight on to their one hour circumnavigation of the lake. It is a beautiful walk but we were getting impatient - we had lots of cake, bacon, tea and coffee to serve!

We shouldn’t have worried as by about 11am there was a steady stream of people arriving and many of them were hungry. At that point it still wasn’t raining, we were fundraising and it felt like we had justified all the effort. If it was to rain (the apps were still pessimistic) then at least we had raised a bit of money.

There was a point at which people started to chatter about the fact that it still hadn’t rained and others would chastise them for tempting destiny. A hint of blue sky even appeared for a while and this temporarily raised the optimism further. It was of course short lived - the blue was replaced by black and the wind started to pick up. Then we felt the first spots of rain and we assumed that the forecast had been right about the precipitation, just a bit out on the timing - we awaited our fate!

We just carried on serving food. Many of our lovely volunteers had to be persuaded to stand down at the end of their shifts as they wanted to carry on helping. We were occupied by replenishing flasks with water, cutting bread rolls and emptying bins. In fact, we were so occupied that we hadn’t realised that we were still mostly dry. The spots of rain had stayed as spots, nobody had to run for cover and no-one donned an anorak. We just carried on regardless.

By late afternoon the sky did clear fully and the sun was warming our backs. The lake looked even more beautiful, glistening in the sunshine.

Eventually it was time to pack the van and assorted cars and head back to unpack. The day had been a success and it had been real fun. There was a collective sense of relief (a degree of disbelief) about just how lucky we had been with the weather. People had turned up despite the negative forecast and we had yet again benefitted from our fantastic group of volunteers - the cake makers, the car park stewards, the food servers, the BBQ cooks - they had made the day!

The next day we were back at the hub in Wotton and various volunteers who had gone home after their shift enquired about just how wet it had been by the lake. Seemingly only a matter of a couple of miles away the heavens had opened for a prolonged downpour and people had understandably assumed that we had been subsumed by the lake. Perhaps the big weather volunteer in the sky had decided that we deserved a lucky break?

To all our volunteers (including the weather god) – thank you so much! The power of volunteering makes The Keepers what it is, and you all helped make our biggest fundraising event of the year a truly memorable Sunday by the lake.

Meet us down by the Lake