On your marks, get set, oink!

The Mercure Exeter Southgate Hotel is hosting a ‘Pink Pig Racing’ event on Thursday 13 March to raise money for its charity of the year, Hospiscare. The event will see a line up of fluffy toy pigs race each other along a specially designed course to the finish line. Teams of five are invited to take part in the charity event. 70 people attended the last pig racing event in May 2013, raising over £450 for the charity.

So far the Hotel has raised more than £6500 for Hospiscare and is hoping to soon reach their target of £7500.

Tamsyn Parsons, sales manager at the Mercure Exeter Southgate Hotel said: “It has been great working with Hospiscare and we have enjoyed all of the events and fundraising activities. The pig racing event is great fun. We had such a good turn out last year that we wanted to run another one to help us reach our target.”

Over the past year staff at the Mercure Southgate Hotel have been proactive in fundraising. Activities have included a star light walk, pig racing, a static bike ride to Paris, and a pumpkin-carving contest. The biggest fundraiser to date was in July when five members of the Southgate team took to the skies for a Skydive which raised over £2000.

Christelle Bonnell who took part in the Skydive enjoyed every minute saying, “It was great to be part of a Skydive for Hospiscare. It was such an achievement and even though I was nervous before the jump, after the dive I felt so relieved and happy to have raised such a great amount for a very worthy cause.”

The hotel also recently hosted a Hospiscare fashion show on 7 March which featured clothes from retailers such as Coco Boutique, L.K.Bennett, East and Coast.