A Burning Ambition

We're always ready to support initiatives for our community in Billericay.  So, in the spirit of inter service club co-operation we jumped at the chance to help out at the annual Fireworks Night Display in lake Meadows Park.

A small delegation from our club attended the safety briefing on Saturday 3rd November at 4.15pm, to enable us to carry out our allotted duties that evening. Our role was to man the entry to Lake Meadows at Hillhouse Drive. President Les, Val, and Keith were provided with scanners and along with Jamie (the gate manager’s son ) were to scan the tickets of everyone coming through “our gate”, whether the tickets were on paper or on mobiles.

Intimidating ? Us?

Peter and Mike - the more intimidating pair in our team (?), were positioned at the park entry to make sure that everyone coming through had tickets and that they were ready for scanning further down the path, as there were no sales being made at the gate.  There was no aggravation and everybody who came was in good spirits.

Damp squib

Those who turned up wanting to buy tickets at the gate were to be told they would have to buy them online through the website and accessible on their phones, or they would not be allowed in.  Advice was given on how to find the website address and help to navigate to the correct page ensured that everybody who wanted them was able to get the tickets they needed.

So keen to get in

Gates were opened at 5.30pm by which time there was one family queueing to come in. They volunteered they had made a mistake with the time, thinking that the gates opened at 5.00pm.

It is always interesting to hear the “bad luck” stories which are told by different folks ranging from “my friends have my tickets on their phone and they are already inside”, to “I am waitressing here tonight so I don’t need a ticket” and “my Mum has just sent my tickets to my phone, only she sent the ones from 2 years ago”. I am just glad that Paul, the Gate Manager from Round Table (or Judge Rinder as we thought of him) was there to adjudicate on these matters.

Needless to say the event was really well organised and the fine weather ensured there was a full house for the stunning display kpt the thousands of visitors entralled.