Being Charitable
Nov. 1st, 2005 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scaryladyI had a horrendously busy weekend.
In a weak moment I volunteered to assist at the Women's Institute tabletop sale on Saturday morning. This involved me getting out of bed at 7.30am ON A SATURDAY. Not good.
I was astonished by the tat people will buy. Bargain hunters hoovered up bric a brac that I had experienced extreme difficulty in even putting a price to. During the pricing process I kept having to bag some other WI lady and display a cottage shaped lamp, whimsical eggtimer, or truly nasty ornament in order to get her opinion on a price for it. My personal opinion was that you couldn't give it away, but I was proved totally wrong.
I donated a large quantity of books. They had all been read once, were all bestsellers of the last 5 years or so. They were almost universally ignored by the buying public in favour of dogeared old copies of books that appeared from the covers to have been written by authors of the Catherine Cookson school.
There were some bright lemon hand knitted bedsocks. I only know this because someone told me, as they were not in any way sock shaped, but in fact bags that tied at the top. One customer expressed a disturbing amount of delight that they were available, as her current pair had worn out. Weird.
I arrived home in time to shoehornellistar from in front of his pc and get ready for the other thing we had rashly volunteered for. Those of you who came to our wedding may remember Deborah & Jeremy, our photographers. Jeremy is involved in a charity called The Back-Up Trust which provides outdoorsy type activities for spinally injured and able-bodied to enjoy together. He was one of the organisers for the BackUp Ball which is their annual fundraiser, and when he found out that we run a casino in lrp (Maelstrom), he wheedled us into running one for the Ball. So we begged and pleaded with our House of Tallard group, and in the end Jem & I + Chris, Mike, June and DA toddled off to the Birmingham Metropole to run a casino for 600 black-tied and evening-frocked people.
This is both easier and harder than running for 600 lrpers.
Easier because there is no currency to worry about. The gambling laws are hideously strict, so in order to avoid it completely each person there was entitled to 20 chips to have fun with, and when they brought chips back after playing I made a list. Those 3 people who won most chips got a prize of booze. Easy. No multiple currencies, no chip accounts, and no IC paranoia about whether an armed gang would try to roll the casino.
Also easier and more fun for the croupiers because the poeple there were not taking it anywhere near as seriously as lrper's do. So virtually no spreadbetting which meant easier maths.
Harder because whereas lrp has unwritten rules about how you can/cannot behave; this was the real world, and these really were paying customers. The Ball was £65 per head, and the room reeked of money. Most people were lovely, but some got way too pissed, and one arsehole visibly skimmed chips and walked off with them, and then refused to give them back. We brought all our own gear and were not being re-imbursed for anything, not even petrol, but we got no support from the organisers - they were not prepared to make any trouble with their paying customers and regular supporters. I have to wonder what would have happened if anyone had got really ugly with us; the lesson learned is not to do this kind of thing without clear agreements with the organisers.
In a weak moment I volunteered to assist at the Women's Institute tabletop sale on Saturday morning. This involved me getting out of bed at 7.30am ON A SATURDAY. Not good.
I was astonished by the tat people will buy. Bargain hunters hoovered up bric a brac that I had experienced extreme difficulty in even putting a price to. During the pricing process I kept having to bag some other WI lady and display a cottage shaped lamp, whimsical eggtimer, or truly nasty ornament in order to get her opinion on a price for it. My personal opinion was that you couldn't give it away, but I was proved totally wrong.
I donated a large quantity of books. They had all been read once, were all bestsellers of the last 5 years or so. They were almost universally ignored by the buying public in favour of dogeared old copies of books that appeared from the covers to have been written by authors of the Catherine Cookson school.
There were some bright lemon hand knitted bedsocks. I only know this because someone told me, as they were not in any way sock shaped, but in fact bags that tied at the top. One customer expressed a disturbing amount of delight that they were available, as her current pair had worn out. Weird.
I arrived home in time to shoehorn
ellistar from in front of his pc and get ready for the other thing we had rashly volunteered for. Those of you who came to our wedding may remember Deborah & Jeremy, our photographers. Jeremy is involved in a charity called The Back-Up Trust which provides outdoorsy type activities for spinally injured and able-bodied to enjoy together. He was one of the organisers for the BackUp Ball which is their annual fundraiser, and when he found out that we run a casino in lrp (Maelstrom), he wheedled us into running one for the Ball. So we begged and pleaded with our House of Tallard group, and in the end Jem & I + Chris, Mike, June and DA toddled off to the Birmingham Metropole to run a casino for 600 black-tied and evening-frocked people.This is both easier and harder than running for 600 lrpers.
Easier because there is no currency to worry about. The gambling laws are hideously strict, so in order to avoid it completely each person there was entitled to 20 chips to have fun with, and when they brought chips back after playing I made a list. Those 3 people who won most chips got a prize of booze. Easy. No multiple currencies, no chip accounts, and no IC paranoia about whether an armed gang would try to roll the casino.
Also easier and more fun for the croupiers because the poeple there were not taking it anywhere near as seriously as lrper's do. So virtually no spreadbetting which meant easier maths.
Harder because whereas lrp has unwritten rules about how you can/cannot behave; this was the real world, and these really were paying customers. The Ball was £65 per head, and the room reeked of money. Most people were lovely, but some got way too pissed, and one arsehole visibly skimmed chips and walked off with them, and then refused to give them back. We brought all our own gear and were not being re-imbursed for anything, not even petrol, but we got no support from the organisers - they were not prepared to make any trouble with their paying customers and regular supporters. I have to wonder what would have happened if anyone had got really ugly with us; the lesson learned is not to do this kind of thing without clear agreements with the organisers.
