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Pete Atkin >> *oDs >> Organiser's afterthoughts
(Message started by: Richard Bleksley on Today at 22:20)

Title: Organiser's afterthoughts
Post by Richard Bleksley on Today at 22:20
Phew!!

First, may I express my appreciation to all those (a fair few of them) who went out of their way to give me their personal thanks and tell me how much they'd enjoyed the day.

On this post I wish to concentrate on thanks related to what actually happened on the day.

So, thanks to all the performers for their great sets.  Not to belittle the others, but Andy seems to have pulled a masterstroke in suggesting to me that we have Naomi Hyamson - I got a lot of positive feedback about her.  I think my own masterstroke was having Julian as MC.  I thought he did a wonderful job, performing his duties with all the verve and aplomb of a born performer.  Thank you, Julian, and it was most appropriate that Pete gave you a really stonking "Master of the Revels" in return.

Thanks too to Theo Clarke and his friends for turning up early to help set out the room, and to Mel, Mike, Cary (and anyone else whom I may not have had time to notice) for a really efficient job of clearing up afterwards.

Quite apart from his performance, I would like to thank Pete for being a perfect gentleman as always, especially in view of his consenting to perform my parody of his own song.

Despite what I said earlier, I simply must stress again how important Andy Love's role has been.  You were a diamond from first to last, mate.

However, I suppose there's always going to be something going wrong; and it's left a bit of a bad taste in the mouth for me (pun intended).  I thought the buffet - not to put to fine a point on it - was pretty appalling.

I must apologise especially to the vegetarians, for I carefully selected from the options I was offered the one I thought would be most veggie-friendly, only to find that what appeared on the day bore precious little resemblance to what I had ordered and there was hardly anything for them.  To make things worse, there simply wasn't enough.  Those who, like me, were at the back of the queue, got short shrift indeed, and will have great trouble in believing that I ordered food for one hundred.  I feel the pub (or their caterers) let me down badly on this.

Still, I suppose I shouldn't whinge on too much, since so many people have already said (thank you!) how much they enjoyed themselves.  Anyone want to organise the next one (ha ha)?

   

Title: After-afterthought
Post by Richard Bleksley on 08.11.04 at 11:28
I really should have mentioned Simon Reap's cool, unflustered and totally professional contribution at the sound desk.  I suspect that the reason for the omission was that there was nothing to notice - no alarums and excursions, just perfect sound throughout - which is the true hallmark of success at this job.

Thanks, Simon.

Title: Re: Organiser's afterthoughts
Post by Theo Clarke on 08.11.04 at 13:51
Richard

Whilst all this is fresh in your mind it would be useful for the next organiser if you wrote down all the things that you can think of that went right and that went wrong with this one.  There is no need to publish the list and it would be a very good idea indeed to keep it out of sight until someone else is optimistic enough to suggest that they should organise something similar.  Joking aside, it is my experience that lots of the lessons from these things fade with time so logging them now will help whoever comes next.

Theo



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