Bryony meets the Great Crested Newt

This little fellow appeared in amongst some weeds. My mum's garden is rapidly turning into a nature reserve.

Minutes of the 724th meeting of the Paddock Party Committee

Held at Ascote Central Station on 27 June at the kind invitation of Stationmaster Steve and the Understanding Sarah, accompanied by vast quantities of cheese and wine but members were anxious to point out that this was not the Cheese & Wine of yesteryear and there were no pineapple cubes on sticks in sight.

Present

The usual suspects with the exception of Sue who was wondering where all the water had gone in Cyprus.

Minutes of the previous meeting

Few members appeared to have read these and even fewer with any degree of thoroughness but that's life and it was agreed that the Show must go on anyway.

Matters arising

Basically all the matters arose as a result of even those who had read them thoroughly having since forgotten what they were supposed to do with the notable exception of Maggie who was permitted to sit back with a smug expression and tuck into Penny's loaves while they were still warm.

Food

Graeme confirmed that he had ordered the pig and that we'd be catering for 140-150. It was agreed that there would be no chicken course available. There was some concern that friends of a Jewish persuasion may be a little stuck for choice when confronted by a large hog on a Saturday and the Committee agreed to think of ways to alleviate the situation. Penny was quite enthusiastic about this and hoped that the saladeers may get the job of checking the likely religion of male attendees where appropriate.
Apart from this possible additional role, the Saladeers would perform as on previous occasions, led by the Chief Saladeer in all her glory who would also circulate a list of tasks so that the saladeers would not find themselves creating seventeen large bowls of potato salad.
The formation of a Tub Committee was suggested and there was a further idea that we might actually invite the freezers to the party for a purpose that the Minutes Secretary rather seems to have missed, possibly due to being heavily thrown by wind at the time.
There was, however, a request that sensible size tumblers be acquired for wine this year. SarahB had found it rather tiresome to have to refill them so often and was of the view that one good hearty slug of the old Plonko Bianco on arrival should both add to the merriment and, on two grounds, lessen the frequency of their return.

Resources

Graeme agreed to dust off the bales and took great lengths to reassure the committee that most rodents and beasts currently resident amongst them will have scattered to pastures new by the time any buttocks approach the straw.

Maggie would ask Farmer Evans to provide a few more too.

Cath should be invited to the next meeting as we need to check her sockets will be in good shape for the occasion.

The Minutes Secretary will produce appropriate signs along similar lines to previous years. He intended to commence work on these rather earlier than 6pm on the day as was the unfortunate case last year, resulting in several spelling errors and a misleading Toilet sign that, whilst providing the lady at No22 with a constant flow of male guests during the evening, should have pointed in a different direction, as, perhaps, some of the male guests might have done too.

Tickets

Adrian's samples were approved and congratulations extended on yet another marvellous work of art and top hole printing. An alternative offering just bearing the word Ticket was rejected but the Committee were keen to express that it had some merit, just not enough.

Adrian would get the old John Bull outfit out and knock off 200, circulating them to the appropriate members.

SarahD and Steve would do Sutton Walk and the High Street
Chairman and Minutes Sec would do Shoemaker Close
Adrian and SarahB would do Cold Higham and all stations west of the A5 and the Meths Group, whoever they may be.
Steve offered to do Milton Keynes. The Committee thanked him and moved on.
This did, however, prompt some discussion of, and may even lead to being a standing agenda item on the subject of, what the point of the whole thing was, raffles, how good a departed member was at flogging tickets and the length of various items displayed or spoken in that connection. Just to make things absolutely clear the Chairman boomed in a splendid Chairman-like manner that it was a bleedin' party and not a fund-raising exercise, glorified charity event or whatever and that we really only needed to invite those other than friends out of courtesy for bombarding them with noise and various shrieks during the preparation for, the day of and the wonderful celebrations of success of the event afterwards.
It was agreed that we should make every effort to post Chris at the gate again and the Minutes Secretary and Richard agreed to chat to her on the subject.

Music

The jazz sextet may be a trio but will be present in some shape or form.
Maggie agreed to try and persuade Sue to try and persuade Amy and Laura to perform, presumably with instruments of some description.
Tom may, or Tom may not. But we reckon he will.
The chairman, Minutes Secretary and Richard will put some CDs together for the evening to play during gaps
Steve was anxious to ensure that for an event of this genre there was a suitable ambience. Members gave him a quizzical look and nodded sagely. There was some discussion about which was the longer word, too and various impressions of vacuuming which may be the first double u in minutes other than Hoover AGMs.

Next meeting

Friday 18 July at Primrose Cottage and environs, depending on whether the kitchen was functioning, sometime around 7:30pm.

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.

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!)

"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!

How to climb a tree

Rockferry