A LUXURY hotel near Oswestry has attracted over 260 people from all over the country, raising over £8,000 for mountain rescue crews from England and Wales.

Michelle Simmonds, an Oswestry lawyer, and community first responder has joined Keith Jones, whose family live in town, to put together a ball at Lion Quays Hotel in aid of the rescue teams.

The event saw so many people there was no more space on the dance floor.

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Keith said: “It went perfectly – I didn’t expect it to go as well as it did.

“We had 266 people attending and I’ve never seen a dance floor so packed.

“We made a £5,000 donation months ago and another £3,000 on the night.

“Lion Quays were really supportive and also made donations to the raffle and things throughout the night.”

Michelle set up a glam corner to help some of the ladies in attendance to get ready.

She said: “We had great fun but it was also stressful organising the hair and make-up pop up salon.

“We had about 25 ladies get ready in three hours."

There were three local hairstylists and make-up artists that helped at the pop-up glam salon.

Michelle added: “It was good fun – we had a presentation and an award ceremony.

“Other people that are in our Facebook group [Adventure Buddies] were gutted that they didn’t attend.”

With that Keith has already put the plans in motion to organise the event next year, with the Lion Quays hotel secured and more tickets available.

Keith added: “We’ve hit 10,000 members and we are still growing.

“We’ve booked again to go next year already.

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“We’re going to give it a go and see if we can do it annually – we’re going to try to make it a little bit bigger next year.”

Michelle is also thrilled for the event for 2024.

“I do expect it to be just as popular if not even more popular next year”, she said, “There are new members joining every day – we are quite a massive community and it keeps increasing.”