On the morning of Sunday the 5th of July I left my house to travel to Great Dunmow and to find the newsagent which HART was doing a rocket display for.

The shop was soon found and from the outside it looked quite small but inside was a totally different story and every were you looked you could see magazines, C.D. toys and now a large selection of Model rockets and engines.

I soon meet Julian and his brother Nigel who ran the shop and who were busy getting their stocks of rocket kits and engines to take to the fete.

A little while later Chris and Sam turned up at the shop and we all helped to fill Julian's car with almost their entire rocket stock.

We then travelled in convey to the school and spent about an hour setting out the rockets and examining the launch site we had been given.

It looked to near the trees for us and with the wind blowing towards the trees we started to worry about what we could fly.

After a while we spoke to the organiser and asked if we could have a test launch before the fete opened to see what the rockets would do and if we needed to change the location of the launch site.

I readied a Hijax rocket on a A8-3 and Chris armed his small Ninja also with an A8-3.

I angled the pad into the wind and after waiting for the wind to drop I pressed the launch button and after a slight delay the Hijax Rocket leapt from the pad and headed skywards.

The rocket then deployed its parachute on cue and slowly drifted towards the trees but landed about 20 feet from them.

Chris unfortunately was not as lucky as the small Ninja shot into the sky and even though it was on only a small streamer the wind took the rocket over and beyond the trees and was lost.

Then while we helped to set up the stand, Michael Fincham, Sam Haynes, James Burge and Matthew Walker the other members who were helping to do the display turned up.

Then while we chatted to the organiser's and Julian and Nigel, Chris and Sam got out their kits and gave us all a great display of stunt kite flying.

Too Soon 2pm came and the crowds slowly poured into the fete and soon started to look at the rockets with interest and asked the normal questions like, "Do they fly ?" and "Are they real ?"

With the crowds being drawn to the rockets Nigel and Julian were soon busy showing and selling the new Estes Starter Kits.

The wind died down a bit when it was time for us to do the display but it was still blowing towards the trees and so we were given permission to change the launch site and we were quickly given some hay bales to mark out a new launch area.

After a few minutes around 18 rockets and four pads were in the launch area which was soon surrounded by a large crowd.

Sam was the first to launch and with him shouting 5..4..3.. the crowd of kids soon joined in and on 1 the rocket powered it way of the pad to the screams and shouts of the crowd.

Then for the next half hour we launched a selection of rockets from the small Redi roc to the 6 foot Mean Machine.

A few rockets were lost and some were unfortunately damaged as the kids started to chase after the falling rockets and tried to catch them, and in their haste broke a number of rocket fins.

After the display the stand was busier than ever and we were all soon busy answering questions.

A lot of the people were interested in the club and took away membership forms and a big welcome goes to Tom Smith and Christopher Markey who joined during the Fete

In all the fete was a good success and we have already been asked to prepare for next year fete and perhaps to do a workshop early next year.