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The mandatory question of "Ho ho ho, and what would you like for Christmas?" was answered by Michelle with the (hopefully) unique answer of "A mass orgy", and Mark by the somewhat clichéd "World peace". As the evening begun, Mark and John kept count of how many people actually worked their costumes out. Johns being that of a Cracker, and Mark, complete with bare feet, and a gun duct-taped to his back, had come as Bruce Willis from Die Hard (that well known film set at Christmas). It seems there were two sets of people there that night - those who got Marks costume, and those who didn't. In fact it turned out to be a third set - those who John had primed first.
Aside from a presence of Santa Clauses and a host of Angels, the awards for the most notable costumes must go to Alan Hollard of High Wycombe Rotaract who had come as the three kings (a costume that resembled an over-enthusiastic Zaphod Beeblebrox) and Chris Gales, guest of district 1090 for his human advent calendar. A costume which came about because he'd not prepared anything, so sold squares on his outfit for people to colour in. This raised £42 for the weekends charity (more about them later), and another £20 when his shirt was auctioned off on the Sunday night.
Bumping into Stuart Yeo (of Bournemouth Rotaract), the Deben crowd are horrified to find him without a costume. Grabbing him by the neck, Mark takes him back to his tent where he has a spare costume, quickly fitting Stuart into the shirt and chains of Marleys Ghost; the spectre which alerted Scrooge to his forthcoming visits by the ghosts of Christmas. At this point it may occur to you, dear reader, to wonder why members of Deben Rotaract seem to bring spare costumes to such events. And you would be right to wonder. If you work it out, please get in touch and let us know.
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Other party goers of note included Paul Simon (RGBI vice, and district chair of Essex) who was really entering into the Christmas spirit, and letting the spirits enter him readily too. As the evening progressed, it is likely he consumed the average male alcoholic intake of Essex for a Friday night. And we do not mean the average mans alcholic intake. Rotarians Dipso and Terry were in attendance (It was a Rotaract fancy dress party - of course the two infamous Eltham Phoenix Rotarians were there). In matching Elves costumes (complete with Leaner plates attached to their rears). Soon there were many more than nine ladies dancing, and the party rocked into the night.
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On Christmas morning everyone woke up (always a good start), and after breakfast the three from Ipswich, joined by Claire, Stuart and Geoff (also from Bournemouth) signed up as team Debenish for the Wide Game. This was a collection of various rounds, including a Christmas quiz (sparking debate as to whether Rudolf is an official reindeer), a 'find the pictures scattered around the campsite' round (Debenish have come prepared for this, and split up, ready to compare notes with their walki talkies), mazes, wordsearchs and the obligatory treasure hunt. As with last year, a certain level of creativity was employed for the treasure hunt. Once the items were assembled, team Debenish took them for checking. "This is me heart shaped stone," announced Mark, proudly displaying a small pebble. "And this is me reindeer," holding up a small fluffy toy. "This is me shell," pushing his female friend forward. "And as for the welsh flag you wanted..." Mark smiled, his bra showing over the top of the silk negligee he was wearing, "I'm welsh." (true) "and I've got drag on..." Camp coordinator Emma Donovan (She's not that camp really) finished checking the treasure, and finally lowered the eyebrow which had been raised for the last minute or so.
Ealier on at breakfast, the gang had been set upon by the catering staff. These fine individuals from district 1140 were the same motley crew has those organising the 2007 RGBI Conference in Watford. As such, they - like all conference organisers before them - were trying their darnest to get a few people signed up many months in advance. Their gimick this year was to declaire three prize draws - midday Satuarday, Sunday and Monday - during the Banbury weekend, with all those who have booked a place being entered into the draws. The prizes, three £20 drinks vouchers, would come in handy for the first evening of conference, so with this in mind, Mark, Michelle and Claire all made plans to sign themselves up before 12. With the wide game finished (for them at least - the Southhampton team were to spend over four hours completing the tasks), Claire and Mark rushed over to the conference crew tents. Unfortuantly, this took three atempts, and a tour of the whole campsite as they didn't actualy know which were the right tents. Eventualy they found them, with only 10 minutes to spare, and signed up. They then spotted Michelle chatting and went over to remind her there was only about 40 seconds left before midday. As she pelted off towards the far end of the camp site, Claire and Mark took pity on her, and called her back, directing her towards the somewhat closer tents which housed the conference crew. With mere seconds to spare, Michelle was seen dashing into 1140 camp, explaining franticly what she was there for, and then looking somewhat deflated upon being told that Mark had already paid her deposit.
The early part of the afternoon is spent with some of the Deben gang and friends heading into Banbury, and others practicing with a veriety of juggling toys in the camp. Stuart readjusts his tent, having found his friends had been bored while he took part in the wide game, and had rotated the inside of his tent 180 degrees. John puts the finishing touches to his tent.
This last deserves a brief mention. John has taken 'roughing it' to new extreems. Having fitted the inside with a veriety of lighting systems (now allowing it to be brighter inside than out, during daytime), and an external display of solar powered flashing bulbs. He was far from disorganised, with large plastic stoarage containers serving as larder, general stores and wardrobe. A box for food, a box for drinks, a box for batteries and a box for his jeans. The other six boxes also contained useful equipment. A display unit now indicated both inside and outside tempratures, and should circumstances require it, his searchlight was powerful enough to project a spot on the moon, or at closer range, really annoy people in nearby tents.
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Rotaract being Rotaract, the Banbury camping coordinators had scheduled in some time for a comunity project. After eventualy finding Snowy - the camp caretaker (he's not that camp really) - a team of volenteers were tasked with clearing a path between the two campsites (the second one being hiterto unknown, partly because of the lack of path between them). Snowy had a tractor he wished to drive along said path, but the overgrown bushes and trees made this far from easy. The next thing that was far from easy was finding tools for the job... Snowy had disapeared again, and his rough directions for finding his hedge clearance tools had proved insufficent. But, if Rotaractors have a problem, and if they can find one, there's always a Rotarian who can help. Driving up almost on cue, Phil Poole, ex RIBI Rotaract liason officer, had returned to Banbury, and parked his van in it's usual spot. If the A-team had been into horticulture, their van contents would have been no different to Phils. Opening the back, the mighty Rotarian began extracting hedge trimmers, gloves and a stimmer.
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In the history of the world, there have been many bad ideas. While debate still reigns when discussing the top 1000, the top 100 are reasonably agreed upon. Voting Hitler to power - often considered a bad move. Allowing Jim Davidson to perform live - usualy rated higher on the list. Easily rating somewhere in the top 7 was what happened next.
With only a few worried glances as to why Phil carries some of this stuff in his van (next to the matruss he inteded to sleep on - no tents for our Mr Poole), Michelle is harnessed up to a torso-mounted, petrol-powered, folliage-anialating strimmer. As Phil shows her how to start the device (a two man operation in it'self), the rest of the volenters begin backing away slowly. With a roar the monster starts up, and Michelle spins round in delight - her expression reminisent of Billy the Kids upon reciving his first Uzi. The volenters accelerate their retreat.
As it happens, and proberbly through luck as much as anything, Michelle avoided killing anyone. Although several shrubs, nettles, trees and rabbits were never to be the same again. Two hours of steady and targeted clipping and trimming, as well as wild and insaine strimming, and Snowys tractor was free to trundle once more.
Returning to the campsite, an annoncement over the tannoy annonces that the winner of the first drinks voucher is a Michelle Johnson. (Who, at time of writing, has still not paid Mark for her deposit). So it was in good spirits that the woodland wanders waded into the tent of Dispso and Terry, who were running a 'Grotty Santa'. With mince pies and muld wine, these two were once again taking (or indeed making) an oppotunity for dressing up.
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While Terry was once more in a variation of an elf costume, Dispso had been unable to resist a Mrs Santa Clause outfit. Although it seemed more likely this was a Miss Santa Clause costume - either that or Mr Clause is very liberal when it comes his wifes dress sense. As the afternoon progressed, the muld wine got stronger and stronger, until even the most hardened Rotarians were unsure whether to drink it, or use it to clean their carpets. In an effort to make up for their paralytic beverage, the proceeds of the session - totalling £50 - were to be split between the Willow Foundation, and the Wheelchair foundation.
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By now though, the Banbury calendar had hiccupped once more. Christmas Day was over, and it was New Years Eve. As the evening arrived, so did another party. With a more relaxed theme of black, silver and gold, the Deben crew found outfits quite easy. John was in a dark suit, surprisingly reminiscent of his Cracker of a costume from the pervious night, and Michelle was in some white, silk, negligee. Although for the sake of decency she had elected to wear trousers with it. Claire at this point raises an accusing eyebrow.
Other outfits ranged from tuxedos and fancy dresses, to Batman, Superman, knights and Indians. The drinking award for the night still goes to Paul, but with ex-RGBI chair Gillian Wain being a close contender, as "for the first time in years, I don't have a meeting in the morning. *hic*".
As the magic hour of 12 approached, all party-goers converged in the main tent (some having split off to enjoy barbeques and camp fires). The focal point in the marquee were a number of balloons clearly suspended to be released at the critical moment. But, it seems there was to be a small amount of confusion as to when the critical moment would be. Well, clearly there was a lot of confusion, as it was about four months out, but as by now people were truly caught up in the spirit of it all, that didn't matter. but as the recording of a countdown started, some people glanced at their watch to see it was already two minutes past. and then Auld Lang Syne started up before the countdown was complete. Details aside, raucous cheering and blowing of noise makers ensued in the moments before everyone linked arms in time to the music. Happy 2006A.
New Years Day began for some with a game of rounders, and for others with an RGBI council meeting. Taking their lead from Dipso, who started sipping from a can of larger around agenda item 4, Mark and Michelle dash out during a coffee break and return with Bacardi breezers. Outside, the skill of the rounders players suggested they had also started on the early morning booze up, and several lost their first footing. The early afternoon saw team building games, the highlight of these involved various Rotaractors being blindfolded and pretending to be sheep, with a Rotaractor shepherd whistling them into a pen.
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The annual Banbury Camping Welly Wanging Contest took place on Sunday afternoon. A simple sport for simple people - resulting in almost the whole 130+ campers taking part. With awards for best male wang, best female wang, and most unusual wanging technique. With three wellys each, our heroes tried a variety of techniques. Michelle, after chucking her first one fairly boringly, took a run up for her second throw, and for her third took a much longer run up, and leapt onto the back of Mark... who staggered manfully under the sudden impact and collapsed on the throwing line. In return he also took a run up, and jumped gracefully onto Michelle, who merrily horsied him to the launching position. John decided to spare the spines of his comrades, and instead went for the approach of just leaning over as far as he could and dropping it. This nearly netted him the distance award, but not quite.
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Stuart scored a hit on Nicole of Camberley (the club running the wanging contest), but it was Stavros of Colchester who, upon almost removing the head of Gillian Wain (also of Camberley), picked up the Golden 'most unusual wanging' Welly award. Rotarian Phil was awarded the Mans Christmas welly for furthest throw. And in a moment of genuine surprise, the furthest female wang went to Michelle. Those paying careful attention will note that certain people seem to be winning well over the weekend. Deben members had scored highly in the award stakes the previous year too... could it be an embarrassing pattern was to repeat?
Sunday evening brought the closing ceremony. Where first off a prize was awarded for correct completion of the welcome packs crossword puzzle. Mark gets up to receive his medal, getting down on one knee as Lisa (immediate past RGBI bosslady) was unable to reach his neck otherwise. Next, Emma announces that for the wide game, she had in mind awards for the fastest overall time, the most unusual treasures, the quickest maze completion and the fastest wordsearch... and had hoped these would be distributed amongst the various teams. Unfortunately, Debenish won the lot, so the team got up, and knelt down, to receive medals, with John laying flat on the floor in order for Lisa to reach his neck. Southampton, after their lengthy ordeal, received the deserved prize for most points scored. Lisa's boyfriend, Adam, was then called up to be awarded a prize for, well, anything really - everyone just wanted to see him on one knee in front of her.
After an impressive talk from the the weekends nominated chartiy - the Willow Foundation, who offer special days out to seriously ill young adults - a live band started up for an evening of chilling. Fortuantly, it wasn't that cold outside, and many people relaxed around the campsite, often by the light of campfires, enjoying the music. Sundays boozehound award goes to Claire Mercer was dreamily oblivious to this, having stayed up drinking till 4pm "because I didn't have a council meeting in the morning".
Monday morning, and Daniel Cagzer of the food crew d1140 earned himself a special place in peoples hearts by gently awakening the campsite to the sound of a bucket being hit, and a 110 decibel 'waky waky' call. Feeling strangly concious after this, Mark, Michelle & John made their way to breakfast. Despite this being the morning of the last day of very packed weekend, the Deben Rotaractors were still feeling quite chirpy, and even joined Caroline Arch and Sarah Bacon for an imprompture dance routine to the breakfast huts music.
As people gently dismantled their tents, an annoncement came over the tannoy... the winner of the final drinks voucher for next years conference, as drawn by Michelle Johnson, is... Mark Bennett.
As people gently dismantled their tents, farewells were made to friends old and new. All in all, the weekend was a great success, and a very enjoyable time was had by all. £1500 was raised for the Willow Fondation, and seven out of eleven prizes and awards had been won by Deben. Sheepishly, Mark offered to Emma that they not enter so much next year. John departed, having folded his tent up so it only took up the boot & back seats. Mark and Michelle stayed on went for lunch with a few of their camping buddies. Finaly, entertained, delighted and exhausted, they pointed their car east, "So", one said to the other. "Conference!"
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Quotes
(aka 'The True Stuff')
"Gotta get back on mu pole and get exercising." - Dispso
"Oh we're not going to do anything criminal, just now." - Mark
"It's rubbish, but it's quite cute." - Michelle
"My stomachs feeling slightly..." - Claire M
"Queesy?" - Mark
"Squishy." - Claire M
"Don't touch cows. Don't do sheep." - Michelle
"You haven't seen my boobs yet." - Sarah B
"Sit and breath in my inflatable mattress. That might do the trick." - Gillian W
"I feel strangely very normal" - Dispo
"Don't think you've ever seen me this hungover Phil, and that's a lot of hangovers in 3 years." - Gillian W
"Should Rotarians be asking to see Rotaractors underwear?" - Phil P
"That's no way to treat a lady!" - Michelle
"<laughter>" - All present
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