Wakefield MAG hosted a Post AGM Party on Saturday 6th October 2007, following the Yorkshire MAG & MAP AGM's, earlier in the day. The event had all the hallmarks of being a complete disaster.
Disaster No.1. The Welsh-T Band's guitarist was rushed into hospital on the Thursday, and it didn't look like he would be discharged in time to play on the Saturday evening. Much panicking prevailed but the band did assure us that they would get a live band for us and they would definitely be there. However, they did let us down at the very last minute and the promised band didn't materialise.
Disaster No.2. We suffered an extremely poor turnout. Only 27 adults and 1 child actually attended. The event was put on as a Yorkshire MAG event, and all of the 1,460 MAG members in Yorkshire received a personal invite in the mailshot for the AGM. However, despite the huge amount of advertising, only members from Wakefield, Leeds & Barnsley MAG branches attended. One couple turned up specifically to see the live band, but left once they found out we didn't have one - sorry guys, events outside of our control and all that.
The show must go on as they say, and we all enjoyed the rock disco instead, courtesy of the venues very own DJ Bling, Keith Clarkson. Actually, it was nice to have a good old chinwag without conversation being completely drowned out, and the cheap beer in the venue went down well.
We had some absolutely fantastic prizes donated to the parties raffle, and Wakefield MAG members had been collecting top quality prizes, for a number of weeks prior to the party. Top scrounger was Mick Culpan, who personally obtained a huge amount of items. Well done Mick - Flight Lt. Hendley (James Garner's character in the Great Escape) had nothing on you mate. All in all, we had over 50 prizes in the raffle, including helmets, jackets, gloves, boots, clothing, tents, army rations, DVD's, oil, beer, wine, CBT voucher, Dnyo testing voucher, multiple locks and chains and lots, lots more
Realising that the low turnout, vastly increased the chances of winning something good in the raffle, had the result of huge numbers of raffle tickets being bought, not only from the party attendees, but also from the public bar in the venue and the staff themselves.
First drawn ticket had been bought by Wakefield MAG member Lorna Jaques, who was then in the most enviable position of being able to choose anything she wanted from the raffle prizes. She chose the CBT voucher and promptly gave it to her cousin Lisa, who desperately wanted to learn how to ride a bike and this was just the ticket to the open road. Lisa was attending her first Wakefield MAG event and to say she was chuffed is somewhat of an understatement. A fantastic prize from Roadrunner Motorcycle Training, and worth £90 !!! Due to the large number of prizes it did take us an age to get through them all but pretty much everyone won something, and most got items they really wanted.
And the icing on the cake ...... the raffle made £208!!! The entrance fees, which we dropped to £2 owing to the lack of a band, covered the cost of the DJ and made a fiver profit. Net result, £213 raised for the MAG fighting fund. Two disasters but one overwhelming success in terms of Fund Raising.
A huge huge thank you to the Wakefield MAG, Leeds MAG & Barnsley MAG members, who attended and supported the event. A huge Thank You also to MAG's Chair, Jane Chisholm who also attended. Lastly, a huge thanks to all those dealers and individuals who donated such quality items to the raffle (see below). These are all heroes in my book and thoroughly deserve your business.