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More Redemption - Friday
Let's see if I can recall Friday...
Work up very tired Friday morning. The heating in the room overnight had been way too hot and after flinging off blankets one by one, Richard finally got up about 4am and disconnected the radiatior from its socket (the off switch didn't appear to work).
After the very early start the day before (Henry's early train), this left me feeling rather drained for most of Friday.
Did misc connish things for the early morning. The sort of thing that you can never recall afterwards, but generally involves talking to hotel staff at regular intervals to ask about everything from disabled access to the stage (none, which is a real bind as we have a wheelchair user in the cabaret), food vouchers for stewards, room access, slide projectors, and all sorts of stuff. The hotel conference staff were very helpful and easy to work with.
I dropped out of circulation mid-morning to spend some time with friends as I knew I'd never be free for any length of time once the con actually started.
The first programme item I had to run was the door-decorating workshop. Door-decorating is a custom I've enjoyed at some other conventions, particularly in America, and is one I'd like to see in wider use over here. We had permission from the hotel to blue-tac pictures to doors, so I brought along a pile of old magazines and scissors and glue and encouraged people to get creative. There were some highly entertaining results and also some quite artistic ones.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
scarlatti kept an eye on things for me when I had to vanish occasionally to do odd con-related jobs. After the workshop was officially over, I decided to leave the decorating stuff in the Rotunda and was pleased to see that it had been used, as more posters appeared later.
After that, came the ceilidh workshop. I can call or I can play, but I can't do both simultaneously.dougs provided the music for me - "Old Man River" makes a really lovely song to dance to - and I cheerfully instructed people into the basic figures. I'm pleased to say that we managed a strip-the-willow by the end of the session, and that's a pretty tricky figure. It was really good to see the skill with which people danced it when it came up later in the evening.
Grabbed food. I'm not a big lover of Indian food, but the curried vegetables were very mild and tasty. I left the hotter stuff for those who like their spices.
The biggest problem with our previous hotel for Redemption (apart from the extortionate charge for function space) was that we could never get a really good deal on catering. Here, at the Hinckley Island, they fed us really well. Cheap (by hotel standards, and the evening meal was pretty good by any standards as it was 'eat all you want'), fast and good quality.
I've no idea at all what I did after tea, but it was probably moderately busy. I know I checked in with Kelvin on tech, but they had the main hall all ready for the opening ceremony, so no probelms there. I think I discussed chairs/tables with the hotel so that they knew how many to remove to make space for the ceilidh. Timing was important to them as several staff were due to go off-duty about the time we would need tables shifting (so if we ran late, they would be short-handed). I promised them there there would be volunteers to hand to help move chairs and tables if necessary and was proved right by many wonderful people who promptly offered help when needed.
I got a brief appearance in the chaos video film (I was dressed as Maybourne at the time and they were doing a Stargate theme).
The opening ceremony went well, though I couldn't see a darn thing from the stage. The lights were very bright.
The pub quiz was fun. Did our team cheat? Err... Let's just say thatscarlatti got into the true Redemption spirit very early on - grin-
After that, I enjoyed the ceilidh. This was the first time we'd ever had a ceilidh at Redemption and I'd been nervous as to how well it would work out. We had a ball! More dancers on the floor than at Eastercon (and we only have around half their membership). At one point, I know there were 50 dancers as there were five five-couple sets on the floor.
I invited Jim Mortimore to dance. He'd never been to a ceilidh before in his life, but he proved himself to be a keen and energetic dancer. He was a fun guest all round and I look forward to seeing him in '07. (We give former guests a free membership if they wish to return as ordinary members, and I think it would take wild horses to keep Jim away)
Danced withwaveney for much of the evening, would have danced with Kelvin, but he didn't want to leave the tech tower unattended (given the insurance value of the equipment there, I couldn't really argue)
I only stopped dancing when my achilles tendon began playing up (it had been bothering me the week before the con) and then I just sat and enjoyed the music.
I think I went to bed when the ceilidh ended. I must have done. I know I slept like a log.
Work up very tired Friday morning. The heating in the room overnight had been way too hot and after flinging off blankets one by one, Richard finally got up about 4am and disconnected the radiatior from its socket (the off switch didn't appear to work).
After the very early start the day before (Henry's early train), this left me feeling rather drained for most of Friday.
Did misc connish things for the early morning. The sort of thing that you can never recall afterwards, but generally involves talking to hotel staff at regular intervals to ask about everything from disabled access to the stage (none, which is a real bind as we have a wheelchair user in the cabaret), food vouchers for stewards, room access, slide projectors, and all sorts of stuff. The hotel conference staff were very helpful and easy to work with.
I dropped out of circulation mid-morning to spend some time with friends as I knew I'd never be free for any length of time once the con actually started.
The first programme item I had to run was the door-decorating workshop. Door-decorating is a custom I've enjoyed at some other conventions, particularly in America, and is one I'd like to see in wider use over here. We had permission from the hotel to blue-tac pictures to doors, so I brought along a pile of old magazines and scissors and glue and encouraged people to get creative. There were some highly entertaining results and also some quite artistic ones.
scarlatti kept an eye on things for me when I had to vanish occasionally to do odd con-related jobs. After the workshop was officially over, I decided to leave the decorating stuff in the Rotunda and was pleased to see that it had been used, as more posters appeared later.After that, came the ceilidh workshop. I can call or I can play, but I can't do both simultaneously.
dougs provided the music for me - "Old Man River" makes a really lovely song to dance to - and I cheerfully instructed people into the basic figures. I'm pleased to say that we managed a strip-the-willow by the end of the session, and that's a pretty tricky figure. It was really good to see the skill with which people danced it when it came up later in the evening.Grabbed food. I'm not a big lover of Indian food, but the curried vegetables were very mild and tasty. I left the hotter stuff for those who like their spices.
The biggest problem with our previous hotel for Redemption (apart from the extortionate charge for function space) was that we could never get a really good deal on catering. Here, at the Hinckley Island, they fed us really well. Cheap (by hotel standards, and the evening meal was pretty good by any standards as it was 'eat all you want'), fast and good quality.
I've no idea at all what I did after tea, but it was probably moderately busy. I know I checked in with Kelvin on tech, but they had the main hall all ready for the opening ceremony, so no probelms there. I think I discussed chairs/tables with the hotel so that they knew how many to remove to make space for the ceilidh. Timing was important to them as several staff were due to go off-duty about the time we would need tables shifting (so if we ran late, they would be short-handed). I promised them there there would be volunteers to hand to help move chairs and tables if necessary and was proved right by many wonderful people who promptly offered help when needed.
I got a brief appearance in the chaos video film (I was dressed as Maybourne at the time and they were doing a Stargate theme).
The opening ceremony went well, though I couldn't see a darn thing from the stage. The lights were very bright.
The pub quiz was fun. Did our team cheat? Err... Let's just say that
scarlatti got into the true Redemption spirit very early on - grin-After that, I enjoyed the ceilidh. This was the first time we'd ever had a ceilidh at Redemption and I'd been nervous as to how well it would work out. We had a ball! More dancers on the floor than at Eastercon (and we only have around half their membership). At one point, I know there were 50 dancers as there were five five-couple sets on the floor.
I invited Jim Mortimore to dance. He'd never been to a ceilidh before in his life, but he proved himself to be a keen and energetic dancer. He was a fun guest all round and I look forward to seeing him in '07. (We give former guests a free membership if they wish to return as ordinary members, and I think it would take wild horses to keep Jim away)
Danced with
waveney for much of the evening, would have danced with Kelvin, but he didn't want to leave the tech tower unattended (given the insurance value of the equipment there, I couldn't really argue)I only stopped dancing when my achilles tendon began playing up (it had been bothering me the week before the con) and then I just sat and enjoyed the music.
I think I went to bed when the ceilidh ended. I must have done. I know I slept like a log.