Chuck Phelps guest speaker for cancer society

Relay Rally is March 20

By Mark Schadenberg

Is there a better way to get ready for competition, than to host a rally?

The Canadian Cancer Society’s (CCS) Relay For Life in Woodstock is set for June 14-15 at College Avenue Secondary School – the battle against cancer or as the slogan says: Celebrate . . . Remember . . . Fight Back. The local theme for the 14^th annual event is ‘Carnival For A Cure’.

This year’s Relay Rally is Wednesday, March 20, 6:30 p.m. at Quality Inn Hotel & Suites on Bruin Blvd.

The 2012 Relay For Life raised over $310,000 -- the seventh highest total raised by an individual event in Ontario. Province-wide the total last year was $17 million. The Woodstock event attracted 87 teams and the goal is to surpass last year’s numbers, by raising a hopeful $320,000.

Team recruitment chair Beth Boulard notes that one way to further increase participation is the number one. 

“If each team asks one more person to join their team our event grows larger and larger,” said Boulard.

“The Rally is also a great opportunity for the community to learn about Relay and why we have the event, to learn what the Cancer Society does with the money raised and to hear a cancer survivor’s story.”

The keynote speaker knows a lot about a personal battle versus cancer. Chuck Phelps, who has spoken on stage before the Survivors’ Victory Lap at the last two local Relay events, has been fighting back since a diagnosis in late 2010. Despite “35 shots of radiation” and chemotherapy, CT scans and several operations, the Phelps message is in a positive motivational fashion.

After his first operation to remove a brain tumor in December of 2010, the original prognosis was not favourable.

“The doctors told my sister that I probably wouldn’t be able to see or walk again after the surgery,” Phelps explained. “But about 10 days later, I walked out of the hospital.

“My talk at the Rally will be about two things. Firstly, I was living a normal life until I woke up with a headache one day. I’m going to talk about my story, but I’m also going to talk about the fact that you can’t put a value on all the research that is going on and the work being done to find a cure is absolutely remarkable.”

Phelps says Relay For Life is a true friendship event.

“We can all get together and hang out and talk about life’s struggles and fighting cancer,” says Phelps. “The bottom line though is my cancer is terminal – it doesn’t get fixed, but we need to keep fighting and stop (cancer). ”

Picture: Chuck Phelps

Lots Of Information

The Relay Rally will also be set up similar to a trade show where prospective Relay For Life participants can sign up a team, and find out more details about camp sites, the Fight Back Zone, registering as a survivor, buying a luminary (The luminary ceremony is at 10 p.m.), signing on as a corporate sponsor, along with an education table with more information about the CCS locally.

Woodstock Relay co-chair Kim Whitehead summarized at last year’s event what the fundraiser is all about.

“It changes people’s lives,” she said to The Sentinel-Review. “Cancer survivors get a chance to get together and talk to each other and know that they are not alone. It’s about celebrating all the victories we’ve won and remember in our luminary ceremony those we’ve lost.”

For more details on the Relay Rally, contact the CCS office today at (519) 537-5592. To register for Relay For Life or to sponsor someone online see: www.relayforlife.ca/woodstock.

Other lead-up events to Relay For Life include two captain’s meetings (April 18 and May 15, both at 6:30 at Fanshawe College). The Relay Fundraising Day is Saturday, May 11, 7 a.m. – 3 p.m. in the Foodland / Zellers parking lot, which is an event featuring bake sales, garage sales, silent auctions, kids’ activities, a car wash, barbecues, and many other types of fun fundraising ideas.

If you are unable to attend the Woodstock Relay For Life, June 14-15, you could join in on the Tillsonburg Relay, June 7-8, or the Ingersoll Relay, June 21-22.