Diary of a Consort: Race Night 2014

November 14^th. Every year my Rotary Club, Shepperton Aurora, organises a charity Race Night in November, and over the years it has attracted a loyal following, with 120 – 140 tickets sold on average in the last five years. This is just about perfect in our venue, The Jubilee Church Hall in Shepperton, which holds a maximum of 145. Our normal format is to show films of 7 races, each with 8 runners. The Races are shown by a professional presenter and each race is picked at random from a series of DVDs. There is a Tote where bets can be placed. You can buy a horse beforehand for £10, and this gives you the chance to name your horse, which will appear in the programme. Winning owners get a bottle of champagne in most of the races, although one of them is sponsored by Glenfiddich and the winning owner in that race gets a bottle of that fine whisky. There is also an auction race, whereby each horse is auctioned on the night and the winning owner receives 50% of the Auction race takings. Fish and Chips from a local shop are brought in at the half way point. The race goers certainly seem to enjoy the event as the same people come back to support the event year after year.

Jubilee Church Hall

Since we started organising Race Nights, about 12 years ago, it has been my job to organise the bar, a job which I have done diligently, from arranging the bar licence from the Local Council, to purchasing beers, wines and soft drinks, and various nibbles with paper bowls to put them in. Arranging the bar licence requires sending an application to the Licensing Department of the Local Authority. The first time I had to do it, there were a few hoops to jump through before I was granted a drinks licence for the evening, including a personal appearance at Staines Magistrates Court whilst they considered my application for a bar licence (correctly called an Occasional Permission licence) authorising me to sell intoxicating liquor.

Staines Magistrates Court

Never having attended a Magistrates Court before, it was rather a nerve racking experience, as I sat on a bench with other applicants waiting to have their licences considered that day. There was a panel of three magistrates, called Licensing Justices, with various other Court officials in attendance, and two police officers sitting at a separate table. One by one, the other applicants were called up to the witness box (I presumed that is what it was, although it felt like being in the dock), whilst the magistrates clarified a couple of points. The chairman of the panel then turned to ask the police officers if they had any further questions, to which they invariably said that they didn’t. Eventually it was my turn to take to the witness box.

A panel of magistrates with Clerk of the Court (picture taken from internet)

‘What is this licence required for?’ asked the panel chairman. I explained that we were a Rotary Club and were holding a charity Race Night, at which we wished to sell alcoholic drinks. After some consideration the panel seemed satisfied, and the chairman asked the police if they had any questions. I nearly fainted when one of the policemen stood up and said ‘Just one question’. They had said nothing about any of the previous licence requests, why were they picking on me, I thought. It was like Lieutenant Columbo, who always has ‘just one more question’ for the murder suspect. Anyway, the police officer asked ‘Where will any left-over alcohol be stored overnight?’ The fact is, I had no idea. It was our first ever such event and I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what would happen to any unsold stock of booze. In my politest voice I said to the policeman ‘I am afraid I don’t know, but will be happy to take your advice.’ His response was ‘It’s not for us to give advice’. There then followed an awkward moment when I feared that our licence application would be refused, until the chairman of the panel rode to my rescue by saying ‘I think that it is normal at Rotary functions for members to take any unused alcohol back home with them.’ Quickly I said ‘I will ensure that we do that.’ This seemed to satisfy everyone and the licence was granted. Phew!

Columbo

When you have attended court once for a licence application, you don’t have to attend again in subsequent occasions, so the process was considerably more straightforward in ensuing years. This year is probably the last that I will submit a written application by post, as there is now an online option which I think I will use in future.

Having organised the licence, my next responsibility was to organise the drinks for Race Night. My aim here is to ensure there is enough for the evening without having too much. Although I buy it all from Tesco, who always take unused stock back from me, I would prefer not to go back there tomorrow with dozens of bottles of wines and beers if I can avoid it. My method is to keep detailed records each year of how many tickets had been sold, what drinks were purchased, how much of it was sold, and how much was returned. This way I will have a pretty good idea of how much to buy next year. However even meticulous record keeping is not foolproof, because some years fashion changes. For instance two years ago all white wine sold out early, whereas I took about 8 bottles of red wine back. The following year, I ordered more white wine, less red wine, only to find the reverse happen, whereby red wine sold out early, and I took white wine back.

Pauline is caught stealing a crisp

I buy bitter beer and lager for the event. Being a bitter drinker, I stock 4 varieties of beer (my favourites include Old Speckled Hen, London Pride, Black Sheep and Marston Pedigree), but only one variety of lager. I hate drinking beer from tins (it definitely affects the taste) so I always buy bottles of bitter, although the lager tends to come in tins. This year, Chris Arnot was bringing several young men with him, including his son, people who work for him, and members of Weybridge Cricket club. He warned me beforehand that they were serious lager drinkers, so I bought 80 cans of Budweiser (in normal years I only buy 24) and every single one went.

Chris's group working their way through the Buds

I also buy a wide variety of peanuts, crisps, Doritos and other such nibbles to put out on the tables, which we will top up during the evening. The theory is that eating salty snacks makes people thirsty, so they buy more alcohol. With alcohol inside them people will hopefully bet more on the Tote, so it all goes to create a happy atmosphere, and the charity benefits. We normally raise around £1500 for charity on our Race Night, and we feel we achieve our aim of putting fun into fundraising.

Doreen organises the Fish and Chips distribution

The doors opened at 7 p.m. with the first race scheduled for 7.30. I was a little surprised when 2 ladies approached me as Ken and I were putting our banner up on the car park gates at about 5.30. ‘Are the doors open yet?’ one of them asked me. ‘Oh no, I said, that won’t be until 7 o’clock’. ‘But our tickets say 5.30’ the woman said ‘And also we get a complimentary glass of wine’. At this point I realised that I hadn’t actually seen our tickets, and maybe there had been a misprint. Also, if everyone was going to have a free glass of wine, it would seriously affect our profits, as well as causing us to run out of wine very early.’ Can I see your tickets?’ I asked, nervously. She duly produced an envelope in which there were two tickets…. to a Parent Teacher evening at Thamesmead School. The school was next door to us, and with great relief I showed them the correct gate to enter the school.

Margaret & Roger Fitzgerald and party - regular supporters of Race Night

Brian Holt with Kay and Laurie Gascoigne

The Race Night was a great success as usual, although not for me personally. My horse ‘Galloping Consort’ failed to win its race despite leading for almost the whole distance. My attempts at betting on every other race were equally doomed to failure. I had a little more luck in the raffle, where I won a big bunch of flowers which I presented to the DG. She was luckier than me with the racing, because her horse ‘DGs delight’ won its race. So she went home with flowers and bubbly, whilst I was empty handed.