A ONE-DAY charity metal detecting event, held in a field near Upton Scudamore on Sunday 26th February, raised an impressive £6,200 for the Royal United Hospital Bath (RUH) cancer services.
The event, which saw 130 people attend from across the UK, was organised by Westbury man Gary Cook who holds a weekend rally for metal detectorists each year, as well as hosting a series of one-day events such as this one.
Gary set up the Rodney Cook Memorial (RCM) Rally in memory of his father Rodney who died at the RUH after having cancer in 2017.
Gary has raised a whopping £200,000 in total since then.
All proceeds from the ticket sales (and extras) go towards improving cancer services at the RUH as well as going to the Brighter Futures charity at the Great Western Hospital.
“Huge thanks to everyone who helped out on the day and to all those who attended, and a special thanks to the landowner Steve for allowing us onto his land,” said Gary. “Having landowners who will work with us is the only way events such as this can happen. If anyone would like to help us, we are always looking for landowners and farmers to support us with land to hold our charity events on.
“Many great finds were made on the day including a fantastic Bronze Age spear head along with Roman coins and artefacts and medieval coins and buckles. There were a few coins found from the Celtic period as well which was around the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, so some great history unearthed.”
RCM Rally is becoming world renowned
The extremely popular RCM Rally, usually held at the start of September, often grabs the attention from metal detectorists from across the world – and this year’s event seems to be especially in high demand as tickets were sold-out in under 12 hours!
Gary said, “Our big event, the weekend RCM Rally, managed to sell-out in under 12 hours which just goes to show how popular this event has grown to be! We actually crashed the website due to the high demand for tickets which for an event of our size is just unheard of, and our reserve list is also full. We are now known worldwide; we have people coming from Australia, Canada, USA and Europe to the weekend event in September.
“On a more personal note, it is lovely to see something that was so tragic for myself being turned into something so positive. My dad’s name gets to live on, and an important service gets some vital funding. .”
To find out more about the RCM Rally visit: www.rodneycookmemorial.co.uk
