How to Stuff Three Hundred Goody Bags

Subtitled: Please feel free to learn from our mistakes! A light-hearted look at just one aspect of conference preparation.

So, my weekend was a rather frantic one, helping with the running of the Historical Novel Society 2016 Conference. It seemed to go very well, with lots of positive feedback (check out the Twitter comments for #HNSOxford16!)  and much general enjoyment. However, there were a few fraught hours before we opened for registration on Friday evening, not least when we were attempting to get 300 goody bags stuffed as quickly as possible.

In case it is of any help to anyone, here are some lessons that we learned, some more quickly than others.

1. It is a really good idea to know exactly how many you have of each item. 

We guesstimated how many books there were, started off by putting four books in each bag, and ultimately had a couple of our fabulous volunteer helpers retrieving two or three from the early bags so that we had *any* books for the later ones. Our guesstimate of the pens, however, was seriously under, so there were quite a few left over by the end. Useful for the FoH team, though.

2. Spread out. Really, really, s p r e a d  o u t  the piles you will be selecting your goodies from. 

We didn't. We tried to fit everything onto one long row of tables, despite the fact there were plenty of other tables around. The piles fell over. People stood by the several piles trying to select one of each for the bag they were filling but preventing anyone else from accessing them. Gradually we moved blocks of postcards, or half the bookmarks, onto a different table, but those filling the bags didn't always remember to take the newly-circuitous route so some bags missed out on some cards/flyers/bookmarks. In retrospect, we should have used at least twice as many tables to set out the selections from. At least.

3. Try to figure out a system before you start.

We had a system, to be fair. But then we introduced a new system. Then we refined it slightly. More than once. And not everyone heard every refinement, because it was, you know, a friendly volunteer activity and there was chatting. So some changes were taken on board more (ahem!) rigorously than others. 

4. Not everyone needs to be on bag-filling duty.

We all started by filling bags, but it quickly become apparent that this was impractical. There just wasn't room. So a few people moved onto assembling subsets of goodies for handing on to those with the bags. This was particularly useful for bookmarks - which frequently stuck together - and postcards.

5. Work out beforehand where you will be storing the filled goody bags.

We decided a nice long wall was a good collection point, but after filling about half of our bags, thought maybe we shouldn't block access to a fire extinguisher. At which point, a whole load of bags needed to be moved. At least it was a good opportunity to check some of the bags for more books for redistribution! 

It should be noted we did get all our goody bags filled and stored, and by the end of the conference - in fact, by Sunday morning - they had all gone. So something went right... ;-)

Big thanks to all those involved in both the stuffing of the bags and the provision of both the bags themselves and their contents, plus a huge congratulations to the organisers of the conference. The bar appears to have been raised!

I'm not a grumpy old woman, honest...

There has been a slight delay in posting recently, for a variety of reasons.  Instead, I have for example been doing full-time teaching to cover for someone on jury duty (exhausting), going to a book launch for the lovely Liz Harris (exciting) and relocating my many things from the dining room table to my newly-refurbished office (exiting.  Also clutching at a straw).

So, moving swiftly on from the obvious omission of editing in that list, another village issue.  Each month, our village has a community newsletter, with news from some of the many groups that are run in the village, adverts from local services, details of forthcoming events (for example, a play by the Launton Village Players and a musical show by the Bicester Choral and Operatic Society [known more sensibly as BCOS]).  Most months there is also a page dedicated to 'the communique from the Grumpy Old Men of Launton.

They live up to their soubriquet.  Usually it's about parking or speeding, more recently the weather has come in for a fair old bashing, and this month they've been very grumpy about potholes.  It's an easy target these days.  Country roads in particular seem to disintegrate at the drop of a hat and the current fad for short-term solutions and simply filling a hole with tarmac only makes the overall surface worse.  We've all seen them and I wouldn't normally want to join in the tired chorus.

Except.  Except driving to school last week, I had to swerve slightly to avoid the small area in the middle of the junction in Marsh Gibbon that had been fenced off by traffic barriers.  Excellent, you may think, preparation for some repair work.  But the judder that I felt as I drove past it was less than excellent and I peered in my rear-view mirror, assuming I had run over something large.  Nothing there.  So on the return journey, I went even wider and even slower and saw, *next to* the cordoned-off area, an enormous pothole sufficiently deep to house the entire Monty Python team and extended family.

I was left wondering what had been the purpose of the temporary traffic island.  Has it been moved by some mischievous person on leaving the pub, so that it no longer surrounds the trench in the middle of the road?  Or is it in place for the purposes of a utility company that has nothing to do with the other hole so they certainly won't touch it for fear of litigation?  Answers on a postcard, please; just don't accidentally post it in a pothole.