Chocolate Rally

On February 17th-19th, BUSAG and UCESSAG hosted the Chocolate Rally in February 2006, and it seemed to go really well; we had 244 people onsite, including 32 members of staff from UCE, BUSAG, BUSAG's PMA and various randoms that we convinced to join us in our quest to run a great rally. We got a load of positive feedback, and few of the rallygoers (other than the SSAGO Exec)seemed to notice just how chaotic things were behind the scenes, for one reason or another.

Preparation

The Rally Committee (seven people, including one from UCE) met numerous times over the course of the preceding year, planning and organising various parts until we thought we'd covered everything, from transport to catering to booking the site and activities.We went to Blackwell Court so many times that we knew it and the local area than some parts of campus, and then had to make sure that the staff and rallygoers all knew what they had to do, where and when. When booking opened, we were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people booking - over a hundred in under a week!

For us, the rally really started on the thursday, when some of us started taking equipment which we'd borrowed from a couple of local groups down to the site, and had fun laying wooden flooring in the dry shelter, which we'd bought to protecttheir precious new floor. Unfortunately it didn't lay particularly flat, so the next day we had to rip it all up again, and a fair amount of it got burnt over the course of the weekend. On thursday evening we had an all-staff briefing so that everyoneknew what they would have to do, and loaded some (jolly heavy) steel deck that we'd borrowed from the Guild into the equipment van.On Friday morning, we met up at the Guild at 7.30am to load the techie equipment we were borrowing (sound and lighting equipment)and took it down to site, as well as collecting more equipment, including clearing out parts of the BUSAG, Wayfarers and DofE cupboards, as well as collecting the all-important drink from the bar. All of the food was acquired, and then staff spent the afternoon getting the kitchen ready, and other general site tasks like getting the fire and registration areas ready.Around 5pm, we set up registration, put out our lovely new wooden road signs and sent staff out in pairs to sit around and direct people into the site - staff who soon realised that high-vis jackets were not that good for insulation on a chillynight, even if we did have radios to play with! People started arriving from around 6pm, and the rally got underway properly.

Friday Night

As people started to register, we realised we were having major problems with the badges. Since the demise of the SSAGO badge machine a couple of years previously, clubs had borrowed badge machines or made alternatives, and SSAGO refused to let us buy one and sell it onto them, so we relied on Blackwell's one, replacement parts for whixh hadn't turned up on time, and which then broke after only doing a handful of badges anyway, so most people didn't actually get badges. We had Charlie and the Chocolate Factory showing on a big screen in the registration area, so some people watched that, or put up their tents, or ate their jacket potato and chatted. Around 10.30pm we pulled the staff off the roads and started closing registration so we could have another staff briefing in the stable block, to introduce the randoms and PMA peeps to everyone else. Some staff stayed up with the campfire, but after sorting out various tasks most of us headed to bed around 1 or 2am. However, staff sleeping in the stable block (the majority, as a few were in the group room keeping an eye on the equipment) were soon woken up by various drunk people who had to be looked after, after Medic Mike had had to smash a toilet door down to get to an unresponsive person, what larks!

Saturday

The catering team were up first, but the rest of us were all active by 7am, setting up the group room for breakfast and preparing for the incident hike. The SSAGO Reps went off for a lengthy meeting while everyone else got into their groups (named after various chocolate bars starting with different letters of the alphabet) and had the incident hike explained to them. We gave each team a set of photos with arrows on, and asked them to navigate their way to the lunch venue (Barnt Green), without using a map. Many of them seemed dubious about the concept, and we were quite worried that at leastsome of them would get lost, but in the end, no-one did and they actually completed it faster than we'd anticipated. Along the route there were five activity bases, from tasting various chocolate-coated foods (including peppers and other odd flavours which left some rallygoers a bit green around the gills, especially after merriment the night before), a three-legged race, a survey on their chocolate consumption and a quiz on the history of chocolate. Everyone made it to the Quaker hall where we had lunch to the sound of the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory soundtrack before we again got into groups for the afternoon activities. Some people got shuttled back to site, the walking group set off for the Lickeys and everyone else headed to the station to cram onto a train towards Birmingham City Centre.

There weren't any major incidents on the afternoon activities, which included a walk around the Lickeys, Archery or Climbing and Orienteering, sweet-making, shopping in the Bullring, Thinktank, the Sealife Centre or bowling. By far the most popular activity was a trip to Cadbury World, which 70 rallygoers went on (1/3 of everyone who came), and we could have taken at least another 20 people or so if we hadn't limited the numbers. Everyone started heading back to site in stages around 5pm, which enabled dinner to be served on a rolling basis. Once everyone had eaten their pasta bolognaisse and chocolate cake we got everything ready for the barn dance, including helping the band, Kerfuffle (who were all younger than most of the students on the rally!) set up, and introduced them to the idea of judging the fancy dress competition before the start of the actual dancing. Despite our fears about capacity, people seemed to split themselves fairly well between the barn dance room and the bar. We sold out of most of the drinks, but an attempt to buy more was thwarted by early closing on saturday night at the nearby supermarkets, but otherwise it seemed to go really well. As the bar and dance finished everyone headed over to the campfire while we tidied up and had another all-staff meeting. Most of us headed off to sleep around 2 or 3am, rather tired!

Sunday

Due to an incident, half the Committee had to go off-site very early on Sunday morning and didn't come back for several hours, so Techie Mike and Steve supervised until the rest of the Committee woke up and pitched in as well. We cooked and served breakfast and then got all of the chairs ready in the dry shelter for the SSAGO AGM. Unfortunately most of the rally staff missed the actual meeting as were busy preparing lunch and starting to strike camp, including taking equipment back to the various places it had came from. After the AGM, there was a closing ceremony where all of the rallygoers were given a Guide 'Chocolate Badge', which everyone had earnt on the incident hike bases on the previous day. We had lunch and then people headed home. Rally staff eventually left site around 6pm to return the last loads of equipment and head home to get some much-needed sleep.

Aftermath...

In the next couple of weeks, we sorted out lost property, returned the rest of the borrowed kit, had a debrief and sorted out the accounts, working out how much money we had made and could send back to SSAGO (who throughout the planning process had insisted that we were going to make a huge loss!)

Thanks

We'd like to thank everyone who came on the rally, and all of the rally staff for their tireless efforts to make surethat everything got done and that the rallygoers had loads of fun. We borrowed vitally needed equipment from QuintonDistrict Scouts, Ariel Scout Group and John's Group, 298th Birmingham. Thanks to Barnt Green Society of Friends Meeting House for hosting lunch, Blackwell Court for hosting the entire event, and all of the places we went to on activities.We'd like to thank the BUSAG PMA for helping the current clubin terms of staffing, and also for access to the Cadbury World Staff shop for prizes and desserts. Particular thanks must go to the organisations that donated money towards the event, namely Co-op and Sainsburies, and the especially generous donations from Wilkinsons and the William A. Cadbury Trust, without whom we wouldn't have been able to make the event such a roaring success.

The rally staff were:

From BUSAG: Nicola Hill, Kevin Fitzpatrick, Marie Harrison, Claire Platt, Josh Miller, Matt Hardy

From UCE: Caroline Chambers, Mamta Madhaven

From the BUSAG PMA: Alastair Gibson, Claire Wilson, David Rafferty, Rosie, Dr Tom Martin, Caz Barford, John Ward

Randoms: Maz Walker, Stephen Agg, Emma Shircliff, Penny Challens

The Chocolate Rally Committee were:

Chair - Gemma Walker

Co-Chair - 'Medic' Mike Dixon

Treasurer - Sam Langham

Secretary - Steve Streatfield

Campsite/logistics - Sarah Dowson

Activities and Technical Services - 'Techie' Mike Dowson

Website and IT support - Craig Genner (UCE)

Logistics/Tecnical Services - Mark Soames (PMA)