In my experience, charity dinners are usually the result of the hard work of at least five mums. The committee is formed eight months before the event, and it meets at least twice a month. Hours are spent agonising over chicken dijon or beef medallions and if it should be black tie or let's be crazy, how about a Bollywood theme? Activity increases to a crescendo in the last three weeks leading up to THE EVENT. Are the raffle tickets back? Can you go to HobbyCraft to pick up silver coated twigs? And some white silk lillis? More meetings. Lots of phone calls. Texts. Add it all up and it must be at least 200+ woman hours. 160 coffees. 240 chocolate digestives. Not to mention the lost sleep.
Our local Scout leader proved this theory all wrong. He organised a dinner ON HIS OWN. No meetings. No coffees. A few emails. Invites were word docs with clip art and last minute, one mum picked up some candles, flowers and ivy from her garden to decorate the tables.
At the end of the evening the tables were littered with empty wine bottles. There wasn't a raffle but we did play "heads and tails" and there was an auction of promises with chalets in France, Switzerland and Austria. He must have brought in at least £5k.
There's a lesson here somewhere. I just have too much of a hangover to figure it out.
Photo credit: Rachel Ford James
