There was great excitement and justifiably so on Wednesday 25th March at Nassco in River Road.  10am saw a live broadcast on VOB 92.9 FM of the final draw in the BARP Raffle.  Host Natalya Peters made sure the excitement was kept at fever pitch throughout the ceremony to draw the winner of the Toyota Yaris.

The Association raised nearly $100,000 for the BARP Personal Assistance Fund, which is a remarkable amount of money for a raffle here in Barbados, given that the tickets were just $5 each.  You can do the maths if you like, but suffice to say, people were enormously supportive in buying tickets.  First of all, we should thank all those who contributed prizes and supported and encouraged sales of tickets:

NASSCO  for garaging and displaying the car, BNB, SUPERCENTRE, GUARDIAN GENERAL INSURANCE, JOSEF’s RESTAURANT, INSURANCE CORPORATION OF BARBADOS and NASSCO again for contributing additional prizes.

Thanks also to the many companies who assisted in the sales of the raffle tickets including: NASSCO; Brancker’s, Imaging & Ultrasound Inc; Stansfeld Scott and Gifts and Things.

And we must also say a big thanks to everyone who sold tickets, but there were some special individuals who sold remarkable numbers of Raffle tickets and we were pleased to name and make token presentations to them at the main draw:

Ms. Beverley Headley, most books sold  - 318 books

Mr. Wyatt Bennett, runner up who sold 274 books

Judy Griffith, NASSCO receptionist sold 145 books

Monica Sargeant, BARP member sold 67

Marceline Griffith, BARP member sold 59

Pearl Hall, BARP’s receptionist – sold over 500 books to BARP members

The winners in the final draw were:

Dinner for two (2) at Josef’s was won by Gladwyn Armstrong from St. Lucy

1 of 2 Life Memberships of BARP was won by Ryan Proudfoot from Christ Church

The second Life Membership of BARP was won by Marcella Hinds of St. Philip

And the winner of the NASSCO Toyota Yaris including one year’s insurance courtesy of ICB was a very delighted Don Husbands of Sunbury, St. Philip who was officially presented with his prize at NASSCO on Thursday 9th April.

All this excitement is the culmination of 9 months worth of ticket sales and interim prize draws.

Shortly after 1pm on Friday 15th August 2008, people’s favourite and ‘cover girl’ of the first of the re-launched BARP magazines “Fifty Plus”, Maizie Barker-Welch, drew the winner of the first interim prize. The lucky winner was James Thorington of Callenders, Christ Church, who won a Barbados National Bank Major League Account with an opening balance of $500.

And at 6pm on Friday September 19th, the second interim draw in the Raffle took place at Super Centre JB's in Sergeant's Village with the store's General Manager Trevor Rollock making the draw for $1,000 worth of Super Centre groceries.  The lucky winner of this prize was Govinda Meera Bai of Dover Christ Church.

And the winner of the final interim prize of $1,000 off the cost of a new Toyota Yaris was St. Clair Cox of Chancery Lane, Christ Church, who discovered he had won when his winning ticket was drawn on Friday 19th December at Nassco in River Road in the presence of Nassco Sales Executives Deborah Newton and Martin King who watched as Nassco receptionist Judy Griffith made the draw.

The raffle has been such a success and raised so much money for the BARP Personal Assistance Fund that it is sure to be repeated sometime soon.  If you didn't buy tickets this time, make sure you don't miss out next time.