Successful return for Pooh Sticks

March 29, 2007

Organisers for the World of Pooh Sticks Championship once again paid host to hundreds of visitors from across the globe to watch and take part in the competition made famous by Winnie-the-Pooh, thanks to help from UKAEA Harwell.

The competition was held on Mothering Sunday 25th March at Days Lock, Little Wittenham. Competitors dropped their marked sticks into the water from the twin bridges over the Thames to see whose stick emerged first from the other side of the bridge, in the same fashion that was made famous by AA Milne’s books.

This year’s competition had a very international flavour with teams from Pakistan, Kenya and Germany who were all keen to beat last year’s UK Winners, Team Natural Colour Cotton, but the victors in this year’s event went to another UK Team; Bears for Life, Captained by Dave Rollins, while the individual honours went to Bob Jones from Carterton, Oxford.

Organised by the Rotary Club of Sinodun and sponsored by UKAEA’s Harwell Site, the proceeds will go to charitable causes, the largest donation being the Royal National Lifeboat Association.

Harwell’s Head of Site, John Wilkins said: “We are pleased to be able to support a long standing local community tradition which has now become a world class event. I know that many people have worked very hard to enable its continuing success”.

Ends

Notes to Editors:

  • The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) is a world-leader in managing nuclear decommissioning and environmental restoration. UKAEA has reached a significant milestone in the decommissioning of the former nuclear research site at Harwell in Oxfordshire.
  • UKAEA’s task at Harwell is to manage environmental restoration programmes on site. This includes the decommissioning of redundant nuclear facilities, the management of radioactive wastes from past programmes of work and decommissioning projects, the remediation of any contaminated land, and the management and development of land and property assets on site. Since April 2005, this work has been carried out under contract to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, (NDA).
  • One million square feet of buildings and nuclear research facilities, an area approximately the size of 21 football fields, have now been demolished since decommissioning work started in 1991. The UKAEA has put in place a comprehensive plan to develop Harwell as a science and innovation campus so that it can provide quality accommodation and facilities for all sizes of companies working in the fields of science and technology – from start-up companies to fully developed international organisations. The 750-acre (296 hectares) site has an overall development ceiling of 2.5 million sq. ft of new and existing space.
  • The site currently houses organisations such as the Medical Research Council, AEA Technology, Nukem, SERCo, Harwell Dosimeters, Scientifics, Harwell Drying Restoration Services, G E Healthcare, and REVISS Services (UK). Adjacent to the site is the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory as well as the Diamond synchrotron facility, the largest scientific facility to be built in the UK for 30 years.

For more information please contact: Lesley Cox, RSRL Communications Team (+44(0) 1235 436902)