After a fairly poor season overall, it was nice for the last major fair of the year in the North East to finish on a high note. Yarm, a small market town in cleveland hosts a 3 day street fair, originally it was the largest cheese fair in the North East? This year we had a distinct upturn in business compared to last season, one of the few fairs that have held their own this season. There is a nice report and short video clip on the Stockton Gazette website, click here
Our corporate business is going from strength to strength. We have just received a commision from the largest speculative building group in the U.K. to provide some attractions for what they described as an 'extremely important' open day. We have also undertaken work for a major hotel chain and one of the North West's largest transport companies.
We've just launched our wholesale candy floss supplies service and the take up has been far quicker than we thought possible. We can supply a large merchandising unit with a full display of different coloured candy floss, ideal for large and small shops, market traders, garden centres and many more venues. At the moment the service is only available in the Yorkshire and North East regions as we can easily re stock these areas, but with a new low price courier service we are trying we plan to extend it to surrounding counties.
A bit of a misleading title that really, its not politics I'm making a bid for, rather its the organisation responsible for the running of the fairground industry in the U.K. The Showmen's Guild of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to give it its full title, (or the Guild as it is more commonly known), is the union responsible for the running and good order of any fairground related business in the U.K.
Well technically there are a number of other smaller independant organisations, but the majority of professional showmen belong to the guild. The Guild is organised into 10 regional assemblys representing different parts of the U.K., all of us are members of a regional assembly, I belong to the Northern Section which on paper covers North Yorkshire upto the borders of Scotland. Above this is Central Office which is staffed by a full time secratary and office staff. They oversee the running of the entire organisation and provide a contact point for government departments etc.
The individual sections are responsible for the running of their own areas. They provide a support service whenever a member has a dispute with a local authority, and they are also responsible for administering the rules and regulations of the Guild. Each member has a thick book of what he/she is allowed to do during the course of running their business. If whatever they do affects another member and is against Guild rules, the affected member can lodge a complaint with the section. This is then heard by the section committee, (a group elected by the general members of that section to serve 12 months administering the section) who can levy quite substantial fines on the wrondoer. Just like in a court of law, this decision is subject to the right of appeal at a higher 'court' ie an appeals committee made up of members elected from all 10 sections, and finally to a tribuneral, which consists of 2 past presidents of the Guild and a barrister.
What I have done, along with Arthur is allow my name to be put forward for the annual ballot of members for inclusion upon this committee. The general meeting is coming up soon and we will just have to see if I can garner enough votes to make the cut.
We've just been on another busman's holiday, this time to Blackpool for the illuminations. What happened was that my 8 year old daughter wanted to see the 'world famous' Blackpool lights, so on a rare Sunday off we jumped in the car and headed West.
We started at the Pleasure Beach, which event on a damp and miserable day was doing well, it must have one of the largest concentrations of rollercoasters in the U.K. I have to say that they do know how to charge, for a while now I have been thinking that some of the prices on fairgrounds in this country are getting a bit steep, but they pale in comparison with Blackpool, nothing seemed to be under £2, including the basketball game which was £2 for 1 ball!
After exiting the park we walked along the 'Golden Mile' towards the tower. The whole area looked like a combined decision was made by everyone about 25 years ago to let the place decay. With the exception of the new McDonalds restaurant (which being franchised has to meet certain levels of cleanliness etc) everything looked like it hadn't been touched up or maintained for years, paint was peeling, letters were missing from signs, neon lights were only half working, all in all I came away feeling thoroughly depressed.
After waiting 3 hours for the lights to switch on, my daughter turned to me and said' Is that it?', nearly 15 years ago, the Sunderland illuminations were far superior to the current Blackpool lights.
The lifetime risk of women developing breast cancer is one in nine Approximately 41,000 women and 300 men are newly diagnosed with breast cancer every year Breast cancer causes more than 12,400 deaths each year in the UK The incidence of breast cancer in British women is increasing by more than one per cent each year One per cent of breast cancers occur in men Survival rates beyond five years are improving, probably due to increased breast awareness, the NHS screening service, earlier detection and improved treatment About 172,000 women in the UK who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in the past ten years are still alive
These are statistics that should make us all stop and think. Candyflosscrazy.com the wedding and party planning brandname used by JARM amusements has decided to support one of the breast cancer charities as its 'corporate charity'. We usually buy the pink ribbons and christmas cards from cancer reaearch, but we have decided to try and do more. We regularly attend events with our candy floss units, and over the next 12 monthes we will be looking to attend events in support of breast cancer charities where we will be selling special pink ribbon tubs of candy floss with 25% of the sale price going to charity.
If anyone is involved in the Yorkshire or North East regions with breast cancer charities and would like a candy floss unit for an event then please get in touch.
The fairground community is like a giant co operative, when someone is in trouble people will rally around and help. The skill base is quite large so most problems can be solved by someone. When we made the move into corporate entertainment we found that this support vanished. Many events we attend with only our own equipment so there is no one else there to help dig us out of a hole. To combat this we began to purchase and build up an extensive inventory of equipment we may need. However we were recently caught out is spectacular fashion by a small piece of equipment that we (Renny ,Arthur, and I) all own examples of, but no one had bothered to load up.
The event was the reopening of NFU Mutuals headquarters in Stratford Upon Avon. The event had presented us with a unique challenge to begin with, we were supplying 14 different items of equipment for an event starting at 3.30 p.m. However, Princess Anne was visiting the site and wasn't due to leave until 12 noon. Unfortunately the helicopter landing site was exactly were we were to set up, so it left us with three and a half hours to set up and test everything, which I am glad to say we achieved with 5 minutes to spare.
The event went well and we were derigged and back on the road by 9.30 On the way back I pulled into Tamworth services for a coffee. Whilst I was there Arthur pulled up in the Transit van and trailer he was driving and declared 'One of my wheels is hot' 'How hot', I inquired 'Too *%£"&ng hot to touch' was his considered reply. After my adventures at Glossop I knew the cause without looking, imminent wheel bearing failure. Jacking the trailer up the wheel promptly fell off, for imminent read about 20 miles ago!
Now due to a stroke of good fortune, the spare bearings I carry for one of our kids rides were the same type as we needed, unfortunately the locking nut on the stub axle was siezed due to the immense heat it had been operating under. We struggled for about an hour before we finally manged to remove the nut and most of the thread from the axle. This meant it was impossible to refit the wheel. We could weld the nut on but we had both neglected to pack a welder. It was now near midnight and nowhere would be open to sell one. What we ended up doing was driving to Nottingham about 40 mile away to borrow one from an uncle of mine.
Getting back to Tamworth we now had the relatively easy task of welding the nut on and going home. I started the generator, Arthur touched the welding rod to the nut and the generator promptly stopped due to fuel starvation, packing everything away in a rush at Stratford I had pulled the fuel feed pipe from the generator. I reconnected the pipe, bled the fuel system and turned the key to re start the engine. Nothing happened, the bloody battery was to far down to restart it. We nipped across to the services forecourt and bought one of those cheap £3.99 sets of jump leads for £12.99 and managed to start the generator from the transit battery.
We eventually struggled home at 8 am, some ten and a half hours after we set off, with a determination to add a selection of welders to the equipment that we routinely carry.
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