IT WAS ALL BACK WITH A BANG!

All Right On The Night Despite The Odd Hitch

We were asked to supply six volunteers to man our usual Hillhouse Drive gate.  As usual, despite one late unavoidable forced withdrawal, Pat Rothon, Roger Kettle, Les Sheppard, Peter Greene, Malcolm Acors and honorary member Tom Acors had all volunteered.  The Ticketing App had been downloaded beforehand, but it couldn’t be activated without a logon and passcode unique to each gate which Round Table did not provide.

Best Laid Plans …

Saturday November 5 (Guy Fawkes Day) dawned and the weather was definitely not what was ordered.  Heavy rain almost all day, but there was a dry hiatus as all the helpers gathered for the briefing at 4.15 pm in the Park, along with all the other volunteers, including members from Rotary Club of Billericay Mayflower and Billericay Town.

Our Members were allocated Hillhouse Drive as expected, and after a delay, were eventually provided with the logon details and managed to activate the App. It all seemed settled at last, but the “best laid plans …!”  Round Table’s planning hadn’t realised that there are three Rotary Clubs in Billericay.  As a result, although we were allocated to our usual gate, when it came to getting everyone logged in to the Tazotix App they managed to assign the Rotary Club of Billericay Town to Hillhouse Drive instead of our club. 

Our members were stopped in their tracks as they started off to the Gate, and reassigned.

No Way In

Peter, Roger and Patrick were asked to man the footpath from the station where it reached the car park at Lake Meadows, stop anybody entering, and redirect them to the Lake Avenue Park Gate. Why, no entry?  They were never told.  A recipe for confrontation if attendees walked all the way down the path only to be turned round and sent back to Lake Avenue, so they carried the barrier up the path to where it passed the end of Lake Avenue and erected it there.  Then a short exploration to find the route to the Lake Avenue gate and they were ready for all-comers!

The first attendees arrived just after 5 pm and the numbers gradually grew until about 7.20 pm when they slowed to almost nothing.  Everybody was well behaved and polite, nobody objected to the extra short walk to the Lake Avenue entrance, and there were only a few people who “just want to get to my house in Perry Street or … Queens Park .. or ....”.  Our gatekeepers had strict instructions to deny them entry.

Our Other Team

Malcolm, Tom and Les were assigned to help the four Youth Town Councillors manning the Knightbridge Walk gate. Business was relatively quiet for the first hour or so and the Youth Town Councillors were able to deal with all the families arriving. However, things got busier from about 6:45 until 7:25 and all scanners were needed.

The scanning App generally worked very well, recognising the QR codes almost instantly, though sometimes, for no obvious reasons, it would take several seconds to scan a code. There were the usual few youngsters trying to get in on copied tickets, but the App rejected any code that had already been scanned.

It also showed a running total of tickets scanned by all scanners, so we knew by the time the gates were closed that 12,961 of the 15,000 tickets sold had been scanned.

A Tremendous Display

The Park was packed and moving was difficult but not impossible, and all 12,961 people were able to witness the tremendous colourful fireworks display which lasted well over 20 minutes of continuous aerial colour.

Once the display was over the final task was to ensure the crowds left the site safely.  Smiling faces showed that everyone had enjoyed the event in spite of the occasional rainy intervals and many people voiced their thanks to us as they left.

A great evening out!