Pudding Party

Sorry about the lack of updates here, but I’ve been busy at work this week and have had to fit in all of the usual, chores, training and surfing too.

  • Working at the Uni,
  • Running my web design business and building websites,
  • Cooking,
  • Cleaning,
  • Laundry,
  • Gardening,
  • 3 sessions on the bike,
  • 4 swim sessions (a few of those in amazing conditions in the sea – the best visibility I’ve seen around here for a long time on Wednesday),
  • 2 run sessions – yes, the plantar fasciitis in my foot seems to have subsided enough to allow me to run. Although I’ve only tried short runs so far
  • Circuits
  • A session at the gym
  • Paddle boarding in the estuary
  • Surfing with Morgan
  • SUP surfing off the seafront
  • Physio for my foot

There just hasn’t been time for blogging this week. And that doesn’t include all of the other planning and organising we have been doing for various things. One of those was the first week back for the Scouts. Anna and I had organised a Treasure Hunt and Pudding Party for the whole group – Beavers, Cubs, Scouts and Explorers, along with their parents and even members of the local community, all were welcome to join in the fun. We thought it would be a good way to get everyone together at the beginning of term, encourage parents to come along so that we could collect subs and give out programmes etc. and maybe raise a bit of money for the group as well.

Pudding Party

Pudding Party

We had therefore been out devising a treasure hunt over the past few weeks, had put up posters that Morgan had created and had told everyone about it. We were then at the hall after work on Friday evening to get things going. We didn’t know how well it would go down, how many people we’d have or what they would all think of it, but when we arrived before the start at 6pm there were already people outside the Community Hall waiting to get going.

We were soon set up and the mayhem began. Everyone seemed to arrive promptly at 6pm and needed question sheets, clipboards, pencils, instructions, reassurance that they wouldn’t get lost and of course everyone had lots of questions. There were also quite a few new Beavers, Cubs and Scouts all of whom looked a little lost and needed some introductions and had plenty of questions to ask too. Most people were also dropping off puddings for the pudding party afterwards so things got a little hectic for a while. We were charging an entry fee of £5 per car which was reduced to £4 if they brought a pudding, so with 4 or 5 in a car it was a pretty good deal. Entry to the pudding party only was £2 each or £1 with a pudding. Most people wanted to pay more, and then tried to pay for teas and coffees too, but all of that was included in the price.

Once the initial rush died down things were under control. Everyone was out on the treasure hunt giving us time to start setting up tables and chairs in the hall and then start the mammoth task of cutting up all of the puddings and laying them out on the tables. We had more than we thought and the number of puddings just kept growing. Another table was needed and a sugary feast was brewing.

We had anticipated that the treasure hunt would take between 1.5 and 2 hours so some people may not finish it all as we had asked them to have the answer sheets back to us by 8pm. One team did finish after just over an hour, but may have missed a few bits. Most people took the whole 2 hours to complete it, which then meant we had the task of marking all of the answer sheets once they returned. Thankfully 3 of the Scouts did this for us – Megan, Erin and Angharad and a very good job they did too. Meanwhile, everyone was tucking into as much cake and pudding as they could manage and helping themselves to tea, coffee and squash, at the same time, more people were arriving for the pudding party and the puddings on the table seemed to be increasing in number rather than decreasing as more and more people turned up with puddings to donate.

Everyone seemed to be having fun and mingling well though and the hall was packed full. After a few words and some frantic tallying of scores we announced the winners of the treasure hunt, gave out some prizes and then handed over to the Explorers who gave a presentation about their recent Duke of Edinburgh Gold Expedition. Anna and I missed a bit of this dealing with a small first aid incident with one of the new beavers – he was in the toilets with his Mum when it happened and was quite upset about it. Hopefully he’s OK though and it hasn’t put him off coming back next week though.

After the presentation it was back to eating as much cake as we possibly could and then the big clear up – We were sending people home piled high with cakes and puddings at the end as we had to get rid of it somehow. I think half of Borth will be eating cheesecake for breakfast today, and the other half will be having either trifle, tart or gateaux!

All in all it was a really good night with what must have been well over 100 people there, more pudding than you could shake several sticks at and a nice challenging treasure hunt that everyone seemed to enjoy as well. Although it was intended as a bit of a fund-raiser for the group that was never the main objective, but as well as getting everyone together we managed to raise some money too. A success all round.

1 Response

  1. Avatar forComment Author mum says:

    Well done you three! Sounds like it was a huge success, maybe it’s the start of things to come and it sounds like lots of parents participated, I think keeping the price low encourages more people to join in…..amazed that there was more puddings that even Alan couldn’t finish off x

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Avatar forComment Author

Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

You may also like...