Well, its over and things are back to normal.
Many people to thank for this event.
Pinklady ("Er indoors"). She had only had an operation two weeks before and due to other circumstances wanted to cancel the entire event. However, she was persuaded otherwise and worked extremely hard all weekend. Thank you to those who did express their appreciation direct to Ann (but no thanks to those that ignored her )
MickDB1. Turned up on Wednesday and worked very hard on plumbing issues for a couple of days. Plumbed in sink in workshop AND new toilet in stable block. Really improved the facilities for all. Even built new partition and door as well.
Bill-H. Turned up with tons of fruit and vegetables all supplied completely free of charge.
Nick-ct. Used his telecoms skills to wire up tv aerial and get my telly in workshop working.
Barbs. For making superb curries and working hard in kitchen.
Proff. For organising beer, cider, T-shirts, mugs and breakfast meats etc.
Sumprat. Excellent chef only occassionally allowed out of kitchen late at night to join in the party.
Syco. For having painted Pinklady's bike in Porn Star Pink. Special mention also to little Rossi for being such a pleasant and polite chap. His excellent manners were an example to all. We heard a "thank you" from him everytime he had any item of food or drink.
Rob Farmer. For re-wiring Pinklady's bike (twice, after second wiring loom was not much cop).
James Sherlock. Bringing several urgent deliveries on Saturday to enable many jobs to be completed.
My neighbour Nigel. Transport from his B&B in Bentley Continental and loan of a few much needed tools and spares.
Friends Chris and Vickie who did all BBQ cooking on Saturday night.
Everyone else who attended and helped out in all sorts of ways.
Now for the moan...
If you refer back to the "I'm in" thread, you will see that at the last update, we had 50 people still down to attend even after we had noted that people such as Flipfly and Kenny etc could not make it. I was very disappointed that so many people either cancelled in last 10 days or simply did not show up.
I appreciate that there will always be special circumstances at last minute and we assume that out of 50 people, maybe 5 will have to cancel at last minute.
However, I cross checked the final "I'm In" thread and we had TWENTY cancelled/ no shows.
Personally, I think this is totally unacceptable. OK, so some of these were very valid reasons such as illness of a close family etc but not all.
We catered for 50 people and therefore ordered food etc for 50 people. We were never intending to run the event at a profit so costs were kept to an absolute minimum with prices just above break-even for breakfast and dinners. We made no charge for the camping, no charge for use of showers/toilets, no charge for workshop/tool use and provided free tea and coffee all weekend. We relied on the generosity of the attendees to contribute whatever they thought fit to cover these additional expenses. We ended up with costs for 50 people and income from 30. The funds that we hoped to raise for the local charity from all the hard work has been offset by the losses made due to all the non-attendees.
To be fair, a couple of the late cancellations have contacted me and offered to pay their fair share of the costs but I don't want to have to contact everyone asking for money.
With hindsight the event should have been organised differently. Perhaps we should have charged a flat fee of £20 per person to cover the two nights camping and use of facilities. Presumably we should have insisted on advance payment of this amount as a deposit refundable only if cancelled with sufficient notice before food was ordered?
Whilst in moaning mode, a few other things that were a bit annoying. PinkLady was a bit disappointed that her bike was not worked on a bit more. I appreciate that the first wiring loom but was not perfect, but I don't agree that that stopped all other work on the bike being done. I'm grateful to Rob Farmer for his work on the wiring but slightly saddened that nothing else was advanced despite this being the third year that the bike has sat there at a Wee-kend whilst other bikes have been worked on to completion all weekend.
I spent many weeks all by myself tidying the workshop and garage and getting everything perfectly ready for the weekend. I carefully removed all non-airhead bikes from the workshop and put them into the garage leaving only my airhead R100RS in the main work shop. I was livid when I returned from another trip out to collect last minute supplies to see that someone had removed my bike from my workshop and stuffed it in the corner of the garage where it was then blocked in by other bikes. I had hoped to get various minor jobs done on my bike over the weekend with the help of the more experienced members.
I've waited over two days before posting about the event as I was so disappointed and wanted to make sure that I was calmed down enough to give a fair report.
As some of you may be aware, we have placed our property on the market and may move to Wales in the coming year. Irrespective of moving or not, I will not be hosting another Gentlemen's Weekend for the reasons noted above.
Many people to thank for this event.
Pinklady ("Er indoors"). She had only had an operation two weeks before and due to other circumstances wanted to cancel the entire event. However, she was persuaded otherwise and worked extremely hard all weekend. Thank you to those who did express their appreciation direct to Ann (but no thanks to those that ignored her )
MickDB1. Turned up on Wednesday and worked very hard on plumbing issues for a couple of days. Plumbed in sink in workshop AND new toilet in stable block. Really improved the facilities for all. Even built new partition and door as well.
Bill-H. Turned up with tons of fruit and vegetables all supplied completely free of charge.
Nick-ct. Used his telecoms skills to wire up tv aerial and get my telly in workshop working.
Barbs. For making superb curries and working hard in kitchen.
Proff. For organising beer, cider, T-shirts, mugs and breakfast meats etc.
Sumprat. Excellent chef only occassionally allowed out of kitchen late at night to join in the party.
Syco. For having painted Pinklady's bike in Porn Star Pink. Special mention also to little Rossi for being such a pleasant and polite chap. His excellent manners were an example to all. We heard a "thank you" from him everytime he had any item of food or drink.
Rob Farmer. For re-wiring Pinklady's bike (twice, after second wiring loom was not much cop).
James Sherlock. Bringing several urgent deliveries on Saturday to enable many jobs to be completed.
My neighbour Nigel. Transport from his B&B in Bentley Continental and loan of a few much needed tools and spares.
Friends Chris and Vickie who did all BBQ cooking on Saturday night.
Everyone else who attended and helped out in all sorts of ways.
Now for the moan...
If you refer back to the "I'm in" thread, you will see that at the last update, we had 50 people still down to attend even after we had noted that people such as Flipfly and Kenny etc could not make it. I was very disappointed that so many people either cancelled in last 10 days or simply did not show up.
I appreciate that there will always be special circumstances at last minute and we assume that out of 50 people, maybe 5 will have to cancel at last minute.
However, I cross checked the final "I'm In" thread and we had TWENTY cancelled/ no shows.
Personally, I think this is totally unacceptable. OK, so some of these were very valid reasons such as illness of a close family etc but not all.
We catered for 50 people and therefore ordered food etc for 50 people. We were never intending to run the event at a profit so costs were kept to an absolute minimum with prices just above break-even for breakfast and dinners. We made no charge for the camping, no charge for use of showers/toilets, no charge for workshop/tool use and provided free tea and coffee all weekend. We relied on the generosity of the attendees to contribute whatever they thought fit to cover these additional expenses. We ended up with costs for 50 people and income from 30. The funds that we hoped to raise for the local charity from all the hard work has been offset by the losses made due to all the non-attendees.
To be fair, a couple of the late cancellations have contacted me and offered to pay their fair share of the costs but I don't want to have to contact everyone asking for money.
With hindsight the event should have been organised differently. Perhaps we should have charged a flat fee of £20 per person to cover the two nights camping and use of facilities. Presumably we should have insisted on advance payment of this amount as a deposit refundable only if cancelled with sufficient notice before food was ordered?
Whilst in moaning mode, a few other things that were a bit annoying. PinkLady was a bit disappointed that her bike was not worked on a bit more. I appreciate that the first wiring loom but was not perfect, but I don't agree that that stopped all other work on the bike being done. I'm grateful to Rob Farmer for his work on the wiring but slightly saddened that nothing else was advanced despite this being the third year that the bike has sat there at a Wee-kend whilst other bikes have been worked on to completion all weekend.
I spent many weeks all by myself tidying the workshop and garage and getting everything perfectly ready for the weekend. I carefully removed all non-airhead bikes from the workshop and put them into the garage leaving only my airhead R100RS in the main work shop. I was livid when I returned from another trip out to collect last minute supplies to see that someone had removed my bike from my workshop and stuffed it in the corner of the garage where it was then blocked in by other bikes. I had hoped to get various minor jobs done on my bike over the weekend with the help of the more experienced members.
I've waited over two days before posting about the event as I was so disappointed and wanted to make sure that I was calmed down enough to give a fair report.
As some of you may be aware, we have placed our property on the market and may move to Wales in the coming year. Irrespective of moving or not, I will not be hosting another Gentlemen's Weekend for the reasons noted above.