The Caterham Overseas Aid Trust ('COAT') charity had a float at the Caterham Carnival for the 24th consecutive year last month, supporting the event while raising funds for our projects in the developing world.

It all started with a coconut shy when Dr Geoffrey Harris was our chairman but after one or two rather over-enthusiastic throws the risk of injuring spectators made us think again! Our next effort was a Spin-a-Wheel which was used for several years - a wonderful contraption made by our secretary David Orchard. First of all the prizes were bottles of Pomagne, but these proved too attractive for under-age drinkers so we changed to boxes of chocolate. This led to our famous Chocolate Tombola stall, with 200 bars of chocolate in various sizes to be won - very popular with the children!

Over the years the weather has often been perfect for the event but sometimes wet, and even worse, sometimes baking hot and the chocolate melts leaving us shouting to would be punters: "Come and win some hot chocolate" or "Drinking Chocolate!".

At this year's Carnival we put on a Rainbow Chocolate Tombola, with coloured sticks matching the coloured boxes holding the chocolates. This was a very successful experiment to see if we can get away from folding the thousands of tickets necessary for all the fetes we do each year - the Carnival, the Dene, Coulsdon Rotary Fete, and this year the Kenley Air Day. For more information about COAT, call Phil Saville on 01883 341063.