We had many ideas proposed, from the beginning of 2004 we Lions, but it must have felt, after our post-Charter meeting to debrief ourselves and visiting Lions, that the actual doing was faltering a bit throughout the following months of March and April.
Thus, for example, Nigel Baynes had invited Judith Parker, television producer, to chat with club members about her profession, at the Fair Committee meeting on the 22nd of March. These committee meetings did not elicit any recorded minutes, as far as I know, but they were crucial to the future success of any event which they planned. Prue notes that Judith gave a very interesting talk, as I’m sure she would have done. I have a local friend who worked in a producer role for BBC’s Look North, and one of the pieces his department commissioned was ‘Metro: The Musical‘ which in its pure schmaltz and effervescence is, to my mind, absolutely stunning. This production would have been created not much more than five years after Judith Parker’s presentation to our club, so perhaps it’s a salutary reminder of what a producer can do.
For the rest of these two months, however, the work must have been going on behind the scenes, as things seemed to be being tabled, owing to insufficiency of time. Thus, although another reccy of the Dene was done, the huge amount of garbage and debris down there was so daunting to those who might have been able to work on the clean-up detail that they were put off with the sheer volume and labour that would be required. Perhaps another effort in the autumn might be attempted.
And Maggie Shearer’s Fellowship efforts, notably in the context of a pub crawl throughout the locals in the village, were also languishing. Perhaps later in the year such an evening might be accompanied by a Treasure Hunt. Or perhaps not.
Really, there was mostly one big event on everybody’s mind, coming up, and that was the preparation for the May Fair. I suspect that our minds were so concentrated on that, and on fund-raising events (more about the Buzzcocks next entry) and karaoke heats, that there was little room for anything else.
Sometime toward the end of April,, if not before, however, Stephanie must have delivered her delightful design for this year’s fair logo, and we all applauded her artistic effort. As I mentioned before, I’ve still got the tee shirt, rather faded, but intact!
