The Gazebo and Trailer....

It's Carnival time... again!

Its that time of the year when the Failsworth Carnival rolls around again. The question is... what would the weather be like this year??

Glorious!!!! Sunshine!!! Not a cloud in the sky (well possibly one or two!). So after a couple of years of dodgy and wet weather, the carnival was blessed with good weather. And the good weather brought out the crowds.

This year the Scout Group moved away from our recent stalls of the 'Splat the Rat' game and this time held a Jam-Jar Tombola. The beavers, cubs and scouts had, over the last few weeks, been filling empty jars with whatever they could lay their hands on (mostly sweets). By the time of the carnival we must have had at least 100 jars filled to the brim. 

Lots and lots of jars!

So early on Saturday the 8th June some of the leaders picked up equipment and trailers and headed off to the carnival field. With at least two hours to go before the start of the carnival we had to get the gazebo up, get the trailer ready, set out the stall, stick raffle tickets on top of each and every jar and, last but not least, fold over 500 raffle tickets!

With a smile and a polite 'thank you'

And then they started to come... slowly at first but then more steadily. With helpers from all our sections, we manfully served every last person with a smile and a polite 'thank you'. At £1 for 5 tickets - we ended up with a lot of change!

And still they came! Jars of sweets must obviously be very popular. 

The girls with their eyes on certain jars!

By the end of the day, when most of the cub and scout helpers were gone, it was left to the leaders to pack up and take everything back from where it came. We were left with about 10 jars including the one with the coffee beans!! (The jars of tea and pasta went early on). At this point we had a group of tired but happy leaders and helpers - who, no doubt, went home and had one celebratory cold drink (I think we deserved it!).

Oh... yes.... I almost forgot. How much did we raise? At the end of the day we had £269.64p and one US cent! Once we have taken out any bills we have with that we should have raised about £150 for the group funds. Not bad for a days work and a pile of sweets in a load of old jars!

PS - we also managed to get our District Commissioner, Les Cowell, onto the Oldham Community Radio which was broadcasting from the carnival field!

Les Cowell making his OCR radio debut?

Phil
Assistant Cub Leader

www.224manchesterscouts.co.uk