Old Farmhouse Family Fun Day 2006 Brief Review

This is a guest article by MG

This was from an E-Mail I wrote to my work colleagues, so you'll quickly see the slant!

Hi everyone.

First things first, a substantially large thank-you to everyone who purchased raffle tickets for this event! The college as a whole raised £31 towards the final total – the sum of which will be mentioned later in this E-Mail.

For those who were in and around Ulverston on the 2nd September, you’ll know that the weather was ‘slightly damp’ (i.e. the heavens opened), which put paid to the majority of our outdoor plans! Of course, this played havoc with our projected people numbers, but we still foraged ahead with our indoor activities in an attempt to ignore the uncontrollable natural forces! The art of contingency was required to relocate many of our outdoor stalls to drier confines, but this went well, with numerous stalls being setup inside which didn’t overly cram the allotted area. We then sent out two clowns around town to promote the event, who of course, ended up highly soggy clowns as the rain teamed down in significant droves.

12 o’clock came around relatively quickly. Unfortunately I missed the opening ceremony (I was in the middle of another daily crisis – water lined the driver’s seat of my car due to me leaving the window open the day prior and I had lost my debit card and subsequently had to cancel it – issue 3 is now on its way!) but once I arrived, it was nice to see punters throughout the pub partaking in the activities. The pool competition went down a storm, with 24 lads competing for a pool cue and case donated by Eddie Sharp’s Sports in Ulverston. I reached the final (only to be beaten convincingly!), but the person who triumphed made a great gesture by handing his prize to a young lad (around 10 years of age – easily the youngest in the competition) who he’d beaten in the Semi’s. This was representative of the spirit of the day.


Meanwhile, a couple of acts performed live music. First up were a group of drummers (who were situated right next to the pool table. This was loud!) who played a standard percussive set. I really like the stuff these bands produce, with the music really fitting in with the vibe and atmosphere we had created – you can see why their type are often booked for these events. Following those was Martin Smith, whose mixed set of pre-recorded music, live singing and banter with the crowd proved to be a brilliant addition to proceedings.

Elsewhere, our stalls were proving highly popular, with guaranteed wins for all on the majority ensuring punters walked away with numerous prizes at a time. The football match (England vs Andorra) really fitted in well with the event, with the team putting in a professional performance throughout. England playing well certainly equates to more happy faces than not! During the half-time interval, we held a mini-auction, with Paul Rattigan doing a superb job as auctioneer! Donations of variable sizes were certainly abound – even a couple of beer glasses went for more than what you’d pay for at the bar with the liquid content inside!

Following the match, we did a whip-round all of the stalls to see how much we had made. Last year, £1,600 was raised for St Mary’s Hospice. With the rain thwarting a number of our planned activities, we were realistic enough to concede that such a figure never really had the potential to be reached on this year’s occasion. Our total at 7PM on the day was near to £920. Connections desperately wanted to top the £1,000 barrier, so Kelly initiated a final push on raffle ticket sales, in addition to adding the extras from change left in floats etc to see whether our newly-made target could be reached… Let’s just say that she did a terrific job.

The raffle itself was then held immediately after full-time, with a shedload of people winning prizes. This included 4 won by Furness College employees! The list is as follows:

Jo Anson – Woods of Windsor Perfume and Soap Box Set

Carol Blendall – Debenhams Teddy Bear & Lacoste Fragrance Set

Kate Richards – Max Factor Manicure Set

Mo Johnson – Complimentary Family Ticket to the New Owl Centre in Barrow (I can’t remember the name!)

The college won 4 prizes in opposition to BAE’s 5, though I am informed that they purchased over £40 worth of tickets cumulatively! As a sidenote, if the people who hadn’t paid for their tickets could do so in the near future, that would be much appreciated (Jo showed no hesitation in doing this on Monday morning – cheers!).

The best news was to come at the end of the day. It transpired that we had raised £1,052 for both causes, which in all, was a fantastic effort from all of the parties concerned with organising and running the event. Our first meeting back in April seems so far away in the past, so this result was especially pleasing given the weather conditions. I’m sure that at the very least, Feature Youth Club will find their slice of the final total to be highly useful.

Again, I thank you all for your support.

Matt (IS)

It really was a highly successful day - made all the planning worthwhile!

This is a guest article by MG, imported from Wordpress. Please ignore the 'author/contributor/posted-by' tag on this post, which is incorrect.