Volleyball on the Vistula

On golden sands, with only palm trees to provide dappled shade from the scorching sun, spectators sat with tropical drinks in hand, looking on as a ball was parried, blocked and punched in a blur of limbs

Witnessing this scene, you'd have been forgiven for thinking that you'd just wandered onto the Copacabana, but it was in fact taking place on the beach of the La Playa Music Bar on the Praga bank of Warsaw. The event was the second annual Real Estate Charity Volleyball Tournament held on August 4th, and this year organised by Jones Lang LaSalle. The only give-aways that this wasn't actually a Brazilian beach were the skyline of the Old Town on the opposite bank and the fact that the competitors were a little too un-bronzed, the sad legacy of the poor summer we've had so far. However, on this day the gods were smiling on the tournament, granting us with a beautiful summer's evening. Twelve teams, including CBRE, C&W, Colliers, DTZ, EC Harris, JLL, Knight Frank, Prologis, Savills, Skanska and two mixed teams - one of which was sponsored by GTC - fought it out to claim this year's volleyball crown. In the final the impressive Skanska team emerged victorious despite a gallant effort from JLL, with Colliers winning the third place play-off. But more important than the glory of winning was that PLN 44,000 was raised from the entry fees for the tournament for the Park Foundation, which is to go towards replacing beds in the cardiology ward of the Instytut Pomnik-Centrum Zdrowia Dziecka (Child Health Centre Memorial Institute) in Warsaw. Another PLN 10,000 was raised by the charity auction that was held just after the tournament, at which the items sold included an official UEFA Euro 2012 football and a weekend's use of a BMW 5 Series Gran Turismo. As the sun finally went down, around 200 guests from the sector were then able to mingle and dance the night away to Latin music at the open-air disco. The sponsors of the event included: La Playa Music Bar, Pure Fitness, Zumba Fitness, Grupa Krawczyk, Medicover, Reebok, Go Sport and authorised BMW and Mini dealer Inchcape Motor Poland. The British Polish Chamber of Commerce (BPCC) was the patron, while the media patrons were the ?Warsaw Business Journal' and, of course, 'Eurobuild CEE'. NN