Monday, May 26

Minutes of the 723rd meeting of the Paddock Party Committee

Present
Everyone except the Chairman who'd decided that this was a fine time to visit Cyprus

Minutes of the previous meeting
No-one could quite remember the previous meeting and, as the Minutes Secretary was Acting Chairman and struggling to do one job never mind two, these were going to be dispensed with when various members suddenly thought of something really important but sadly lacking in context. These are listed under Matters arising.

Matters arising
Serving wine from boxes may require bending over more than from bottles.
Penny's got a big one in the garage
There was a request for no nudity on tickets
Men in tights might be considered
Either Graeme fancied a big barrel of beer or a ventriloquist was discussed
One member didn't want their nose bitten again.
At this point the Acting Chairman thought it might be a good idea to call some sort of order to the proceedings before the discussion of a meeting no-one could recall anyway turned to things like trains and Aretha Franklin from which, having arisen, matters may never descend again.

Decisions and action
Date: 16 August 2008
Graeme will organise the pig and the scout tent
There should be plenty of tents and things as we'd acquired some last year
Adrian & SarahB will enquire about the Cold Higham tables
Richard will take care of all things electrical, within reason, and Cathy needs to come home to enable us to plug in to her socket.
We'll run a raffle with just a main prize and a few others. Raffle proceeds and profits would go to the International Fund for Animal Welfare as suggested by SarahB. (Should there be a large number of donated 'prizes' then we'll have to think of a plan to distribute them but it was agreed that the long awards ceremony and huge prize list board production would be dropped this year.)
Cater for 140
Ticket price £7.50. Children 11 and under free

Music
The Jazz trio or quartet (they kept moving) will be available and it was agreed they'd been a great addition to the day, not least because we could use their sound kit for other things.
Maggie would contact the Two Girls who'd been excellent a couple of years back
Sue would find out about the haybale band, Apricot Pie
Adrian would find out what Los Sombreros would need by way of money or other recompense to provide a little entertainment
Maggie mentioned "Dylan", presumably not Bob, but someone who might be willing to come along and strum tunefully for a while
Steve didn't think that Tom's Band would necessarily be Tom's Band any more but would see whether he could persuade bits of Tom's Band to perform later in the evening

Saladeers
Penny would, as Chief Saladeer, take care of all things filling. The saladeers agreed that there wouldn't be a chicken dish this year.

Tickets
Adrian would submit a suitably whacky draft for this year's tickets (previous years' tickets now becoming collectors' pieces and even exchanging hands at more than face value).
Text, times etc as last year. We'd think about how to sell them next time.

Next meeting
SarahD said we could meet at her house and Steve may be willing to provide a conducted tour of developments on The Astcote Line sometime in July.

Thanks to Sue for food, wine, refreshments and seats this time.



Wednesday, May 7

Cat food



Maggie says these are robins and there may be another hiding behind the others. The nest is in a storage shed (and pretty inaccessible to cats by the way!)

Sunday, May 4

"But it said 7/3d on the box!"



Muliply that by 750 and you'll be nearer the value of this now, as long as you've got the box and haven't been banging it up against the skirting board, in a manner of speaking.

Now I know I said I was going to change my car for something smaller but this wasn't quite what I intended! A trip to a Toy Fair at NEC Birmingham with the Chairman of the Paddock Party Committee was well worthwhile, though, and I returned considerably worse off but pleased with some new additions to the old collection.

More on my Facebook album

Incidentally, with just over 100 days to Party No. 5, expect some interesting 'minutes' in the near future!