What do you get when you put together fabulous guests decked out in pink, excellent Johannesburg weather and a premium polo club? Well the Playing For Pink Ladies Invitational Polo of course!
On Saturday, the wonderful people of Edith Venter Promotions hosted Marvin for The Ultimate Group’s fourth annual Playing For Pink Ladies Invitational Polo presented by black® (in association with Whirlpool) and what a fantastic day it was. The event saw the who’s who of South Africa gathered at the Inanda Club for a day out in support of an excellent cause; the Reach For Recovery Ditto Project, which is a program aimed at helping women from lower income groups, who cannot afford to undergo reconstructive surgery, to be fitted with an external breast prosthesis to regain their confidence and dignity after diagnosis and surgery.
We managed to have a chat with the inimitable Edith Venter – CEO of Edith Venter Promotions during the wonderful festivities of the day and we spoke about the origins of the event and what it means to her. She noted that polo is a male dominated sport and when they started the event under the banner of ‘Pink Polo’ at Val de Vie Estate in Cape Town they sought to put a softer side to the sport by having ladies’ teams playing. After much success the event was brought to the Inanda Club and aptly named ‘Playing For Pink’. Edith noted that the purpose of the day, over and above the glitz and glamor means a lot as the proceeds of the day go towards helping women get back their dignity and gives them hope and faith that there’s life after breast cancer.
When asked if enough was being done by the ordinary man or woman when it comes to supporting the cause and how people could help, Edith responded that “each of us is touched in some way by cancer, not only breast cancer, but other forms of cancer as well, be it personally or through a friend or relative who has cancer and helping to raise awareness or even volunteering at an organisation that helps cancer patients and survivors is important”.
The day’s festivities included amazing food and drinks with revellers entertained by the wonderful Unathi and Kwesta, who gave a riveting performance that saw him perform with the actual crowd around him, he had every single patron there on their feet. The actual polo match was played between Team Africa – Whirlpool (Neku Atowadi, Louisa Evans, Pammela Greenshields and Gareth Evans) and Team SA black® (Emily Crowe, Jo Spilsbury, Jocelyn Spilsbury and Tom de Bruin) that saw Team Whirlpool winning by five goals to four after a seventh, extra-time chukka. I find polo to be such a fascinating sport, the level of concentration and coordination by both player and horse is absolutely incredible, it truly is a sport of kings and queens.
An incredibly touching moment was when a marching band performed Beyonce’s ‘Who Runs The World’ and there were Jaguar’s that drove onto the field with some ladies who are breast cancer survivors and once the performance was done, they released balloons into the sky. A truly moving moment in the day that reminded us all that there is life after cancer. In the words of Edith Venter “let’s be glamorous and enjoy the champagne, but we know that all that has a heart and it’s for a good cause”. A day of glamour it was with absolutely no detail left to chance, from the arrival with Jaguar’s shuttling guests from the parking to the actual event, to the drinks and food and the wonderful goodie bags, it truly was a fantastic day of Pink Fire and Sandton was definitely painted pink all in the name of a truly fabulous day of raising funds and awareness. Here’s looking forward to next year.
