Funfairgames, aka trials and tribulations!
The trials and tribulations of running a funfair company ably assisted by my 2 partners, Laurel and Hardy
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- Who Do We Help
I've just encountered an interesting problem. We switched our catering units to Fairtrade a while back and since then we have used only Fairtrade sugar on the candy floss carts. Whilst picking up some sugar from a supermarket for a last minute job I took the time to read the blurb on the back of 2 different packets. The Tate and Lyle packet made a big splash about how they were switching their entire production in this country to Fairtrade and were bringing the sugar in from 3rd world producers. Silver Spoon on the other hand made a big deal of the fact that they support British farmers by using British sugar beet, also their sugar is transported only a few miles thus being much better for the environment. The dilemma is do we continue with our Fairtrade policy and save the 3rd world, or switch to Silver Spoon and save the environment? |
21 , 21 Jul 2008 23:17:00 GMT - The Lunatics Are In Charge Again
The very first stall of my own that I operated was a shooting gallery. It used the Brocock range of pistols which looked like real guns and used a clever system of mini air cartridges which resembled bullets. You charged the cartridge up, placed a pellet in the end and then loaded the pistol just like you see the cowboys doing it on telly. You then had 6 rapid shots, opened the cylinder and ejected the used shells. Great fun and a successful game. A few year ago the law changed and these guns were outlawed. They now carry a 5 year prison sentence for possessing one. It seems that some criminals were having the guns altered to actually fire .22 calibre live ammunition. Now I am not allowed to use these guns because they in theory can be converted to fire live rounds. I can however quite legally use the firearms exemption certificate that I have been granted, to buy guns that have been manufactured to fire live rounds from the very start, really logical. Whilst running around Yorkshire recently trying to find some replacement cork guns for one of our corporate games units, I was relating this scenario to the lady in charge of the gun dealers I was patronising. It turned out she had a better story. It seems that a young 16 year old employee at the store had applied for and been granted a firearms certificate, so he can quite legally buy rifles and live ammunition from the aforementioned store. However because he is under 18 they cannot legally allow him to buy an air rifle or pellets? as it is classed as unsafe. What sort of morons sit in their ivory towers making up these deranged rules?Victorian Sidestalls For Hire|
03 , 3 Jul 2008 23:05:00 GMT - Help From HM Constabulary
The recent event we attended at Yarm, (the revival of its gala after about 70 years) turned out to be quite a success. We only attended with a Big Wheel, helter skelter, round stall and catering unit, due to the fact that we were positioned right outside a shop that is renowned for its rabid opposition to Yarm fair. The shops owner must have an automatic system for complaining to the local papers, as one year when the fair was a week later than normal, his objection was printed on the normal dates moaning about the fair being in town when it wasn't! Anyway to make matters easier I had arranged with the town council to have a section of the high street coned off to allow me to pull the helter skelter on and Micheal to pull the wheel into position, the idea being that the two biggest items were to be set up the day before. I was pulling on at 6am and had arranged for Micheal to get there around 7. I turned up a little after 6 and the area was coned off alright, unfortunately there was a Lexus car parked right in the middle of where Micheal was due to stand. I got set and when Micheal arrived we measured up to see if we could squeeze in anywhere. Unfortunately the car was positioned in the perfect place to prevent the wheel building up. I telephoned the local constabulary and told them the problem, and they told me they would be in touch. About an hour later having heard nothing, I rang the chairman of the local council and asked him to ring the police for me. Within 5 minutes a traffic car turned up. I explained the problem to the officer and he promised o try and sort something out. He returned 10 minutes later and told me that the car was registered to an estate agents that didn't open until after half nine. He then tried the car door and it opened! Not what you would expect from a 2 year old Lexus. I asked if we could push it out of the way, but he flatly refused, (if we had tried the door it would have been half way down the high street and we would be built up already), I asked if the car could be towed, which we have had done in the past, most notably at Northallerton Mayfair. What happened there was the police rang the number for the registered owner of that car and his wife answered, "You husband's car is causing an obstruction in Northallerton High Street" say's Mr Police man, "No my husband is in Peterborough on business", replies Mrs inconsiderate car drivers wife, "Its definitely in Northallerton" challenges our friendly police officer, "Definitely is not" was the wife's reply. In the end the police had the vehicle removed and it transpired that the car driver was engaged in a clandestine affair with a young lady living just off the high street! Unfortunately this police officer told us that they couldn't remove the car as it was not causing an obstruction on the high way, he then went on to explain that we would just have to wait until they could contact the owner and have the car moved. My problem was that we had a 75ft long vehicle blocking one side of the road in a town that after 8am is tremendously busy. "I'm in charge of the traffic here," stated the officer, "I will ensure you do not get a ticket for parking." We actually sat there until nearly 11 o'clock before the bloody car driver had sobered up enough to move, and true to his word the police officer ensured we didn't get ticketed, much to the chagrin of the local traffic gastapo, sorry traffic warden. We did have a bus driver shouting at us about making the access to the turning circle tight, why he had to shout is beyond me, if he had asked us to back up ten feet we would happily have done so. |
30 , 30 Jun 2008 08:25:00 GMT - Birth Of A Cult
When we started this blog it was meant to be a mix of information on the fairground industry, personal views and a lighthearted look at our adventures (and misadventures) in the world of corporate entertainment. Over time the stories of Arthur have attracted a steady following. Indeed its quite normal on meeting a client for the first time for them to become excited at the thought of meeting Arthur in the flesh. One lady I met commented on how much she enjoyed the stories of the, as she put it, "idiot you have wrapped around your neck." Indeed she was quite put out that due to the pressures of our workload, I haven't been keeping the blog updated as much as I would like. Anyway for all those fans of Arthur we now have a range of t-shirts available to show your appreciation of him. They can be ordered by sending an email to ila@funfairgames.net . Arthur would also like it to be known that he is quite amenable to appearing on talk shows or opening the odd village fete or shopping centre.
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26 , 26 Jun 2008 22:38:00 GMT - Hectic Times
I tend to read a lot, everything from fiction through to autobiographies. Reading the success stories of many businesses it seems they have a commen thread, an individual with exceptional drive, energy and flair. Within our business that person is Arthur. Pictured below is this human dynamo at the recent ball we operated at in Bristol. What happened is that Arthur was running a college event Friday night into Saturday morning in Durham. I travelled to Birmingham to begin setting up for a large event for Mid Counties Co-Operative. On Saturday Arthur collected me from Durham and we set off for Bristol to supply attractions at the Goldneys Charity Ball. By this time both Arthur and I were feeling the effects of lack of sleep. On arriving at the Bristol venue it didn't help to discover that we had to carry everything for about a thousand yards to set up.
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17 , 17 Jun 2008 00:45:00 GMT - Thornbridge 2008
For the past 3 years we have provided attractions to the annual Thornbridge Hall open day. This is one of the most stunning private estates in the country, and the 6th July is one of the very few days that members of the public are allowed into the estate.
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03 , 3 Jun 2008 21:46:00 GMT - Coming Events 2008
Here are the microformats for some of our upcoming events; Gainsborough Riverside Festival: June 7th- 8th, at Gainsborough, Lincs Future Perfect Festival: June 8th at the Racecourse, Durham City Yarm Gala: June 21st- 22nd, at Yarm, Cleveland The event in Yarm is a revival of a community festival that hasn't been held in over 100 years, a major brewery has agreed to sponsor the event and there seems to be a good line up of attractions. We are presenting a small Victorian style funfair in keeping with the theme. Of the other events listed here, Gainsborough Riverside Festival will see us presenting another fair after the unqualified success of last year. This time they are allowing us to operate on the Sunday as well, in addition the other established fairs in the town have been canceled this year, so that can only help. The Durham event is a new one so its a bit of a leap in the dark, but it sees us continuing our relationship with the City, where we have quite a number of upcoming events. |
01 , 1 Jun 2008 11:30:00 GMT - Green Is The Colour
The recent Green City Days festival in Sheffield, which we presented under the Universal Funfairs banner along with Yorkshire showman James Holmes saw us undertake the first working trials or our bio diesel initiative. We have been running a test generator on various blends for a while, but this was the first time we used it to actually operate at an event. Most of the generators there were on various blends from B5 upto about B30 (30% bio), but one of our Kubota sets was taken all the way upto B100 (pure bio). We had to change the filter mid way through the event as a precaution, but other than that it worked excellently. We are now taking our other small generators upto B100 fuel with the intention that by the end of June all of our smaller events will be powered 100% from fuel made from waste vegetable oil. From a business point of view, most of the family attractions at the event did quite well. The games units and catering were a bit poor which is surprising, but children's rides and bigger rides such as the waltzer rode well. The organisers were so pleased that they have already offered us a number of other events, and representatives from other councils who were visiting the festival have asked about presenting something similar in there own Boroughs. |
31 , 31 May 2008 08:43:00 GMT - Environmental Friendly Funfair Update 3
"The diligent farmer plants trees, of which he himself will never see the fruit." — Cicero
Our environmental sustainability project is progressing nicely. We have the biodegradable consumables and recycling schemes working well, we are using Fairtrade products as standard and our on site waste composter is steaming away merrily. At an event we are running over the weekend, not only are we complying with the schemes we have set up, but the other catering units on site have also fallen into line so hopefully things are spreading outwards from our initial project. THe second phase of our policy will see us make the switch to bio diesel, engineered from waste vegetable oil. The test bed system we are running is already using a B50 blend (50% bio fuel). Over the next couple of weeks we intend to raise this to B100 (pure bio diesel). Once that has happened and the system runs reliably, we will be making the changeover with our other units. We then intend to have the generating sets repainted in a bright green, and vinyl lettering applied to the sides of each set giving details of the fact that they are environmentally friendly. The main thrust of this bio fuel scheme was to lower emissions and obviously mineral oil consumption, but a handy side effect is the fact that bio diesel is classed as a non hazardous substance when spilt, and evidently degrades at the same speed sugar does. This should help our marketing efforts when applying for sites in public parks and near rivers etc. We have also received our first Gary Cooper speech of the season, for the uninitiated, this is where one of the older funfair operators (think Jurassic period) decides that an event we are involved with should belong to him because of some divine providence. This usually results in warnings of extreme calamity to be visited upon us. Oh well, we haven't had one for a while so I suppose life would become a bit boring without them. |
24 , 24 May 2008 02:03:00 GMT - Universal Funfairs
As mentioned in a previous post, we have formed a joint vebture with another operator to acquire and run a number of events in the Yorkshire region. The first of these is in Sheffields Hillsborough Park and the microformat is below for anyone that can make use of the standard; Green City Festival: May 25th- 26th, at the Hillsborough Park Sheffield We have taken and organised the first event in a little over 2 weeks, which didn't leave us a lot of time to put everything into place, the new company logo is shown below, although this is a first draft and it will evolve with time.
We received one piece of really bad news this week, a star of one of our previous posts, Paul suffered a massive stroke in his bed a couple of days ago. Only 38 he is currently in a critical condition in a local hospital.
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21 , 21 May 2008 08:38:00 GMT - Green City Festival
Over the last few years, we have moved most of our business away from traditional fairgrounds and into the corporate arena. However we do take on new funfairs from time to time depending on our corporate workload. Recently we were offered the chance to form a joint venture with another operator to take on a number of new events in the Sheffield area. Although we haven't decided on a trading title yet, we have just secured the first of these events in Hillsborough park over the whitsun bank holiday. The flyer is pictured below;
It looks a promising event and I will include a full write up here after it has taken place. One of the deciding factors in winning this was our environmental policy, and we will be placing recycling stations and waste collection services around the site.
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08 , 8 May 2008 22:03:00 GMT - Hummer
Arthur and I were at 3 different events last weekend. At the first of these, we supplied a number of attractions for a private party just North of Newcastle upon Tyne. The estate was absolutely stunning, and must be one of the most impressive private homes we have ever operated at. After setting everything up, the transit van and trailer we were using sank in the soft ground. After 2 hours of trying to dig it out and extricate it using skidmats we were well and truly stuck. Just then the estate owner walked up, dropped a set of keys in my hand and said "I'll leave this with you lads." As he walked off I spotted the vehicle he had left us, an American Hummer, the smaller version of the American military Humvee off roader. When I say smaller, its all relative, the Hummer was smaller than say Mount Everest, but still larger than anything we possess other than our Heavy transport vehicles. Anyway I jumped in, we chained it to the Transit/trailer combination and I set off backwards, it pulled them with real ease, all the more impressive when you consider that I hadn't given Arthur time to jump in the tranny, and the handbrake was still on. After our successful extraction, I jumped out to let Arthur have a turn. He moved about 3 feet backwards, stopped, jumped out and said "I don't like it, its too big. " I suppose with him being little it made it seem relatively bigger than it did to us normal people. On the day the event went well, right upto the de rig and removal of everything. We had contracted someone in with a children's ride as ours were all booked up. Micheal has attended various events with us and helps us out on occasion. As he was exiting the site, he had trouble passing a large bush and didn't want to scratch his new pick up. So he decided to trim the bush back. He stepped on a very large branch to give himself room to cut it, his foot slipped and the aforementioned branch sprung back up, depositing Micheal on his backside and breaking his nose, not to mention knocking his glasses off and cutting his eyelids open! I rang a few days later to check on him and he was sore but recovering. |
06 , 6 May 2008 08:34:00 GMT - BioDiesel
"The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable." — Confucius
After talking to a number of people and researching the subject as much as I can, I've decided to begin an experiment with one of our generators and biodiesel. After the upcoming Northallerton Mayfair, I have a few days breathing space. I've chosen one of our smaller Kubota engined generators to be a test bed. A local company produces biodiesel, and I am going to blend a mix and see just how this particular engine takes to it. I think a weak blend would be best to start with, perhaps a B10 (10% biodiesel, 90% mineral diesel). If it performs ok on this then it can be increased until it either reaches the point the engine doesn't run smoothly, or it reaches B100 which is pure biodiesel. There are two reasons behine this test. Firstly it fits in with our environmental policy. Secondly, the rate that fuel costs are increasing, it is reaching the stage where we are considering investing in a micro plant for producing biodiesel, either from virgin vegatable oil, or from waste cooking oil. The current exemption from duty of 2500 litres per person, would be enough to power all of our generators, and make a start on some of our transport costs. If we can reduce our fuel bill by twenty five percent, that is more than enough to pay for the costs of acquiring the biodiesel processing system. |
24 , 24 Apr 2008 22:57:00 GMT - Flat Packed
The Swedish Jora, waste digester that is being mounted in one of our vehicles turned up this morning. Like most things Swedish it is flat packed! Admittedly the instructions are easier to follow than ikea wardrobes, but it still took a bit of headscratching and a couple of false starts before we finally had it together. Starting tomorrow we will start adding waste food to begin the composting process. Arthur and I spent most of today visiting the RSVP exhibition in Manchester. It was held in the Gmex centre, now being called Manchester Central. For a major exhibition venue the signposting was absolutely ridiculous, after passing Leeds, the signposts disappeared, and we ended up using sat nav to zero in on the location. Whilst at the event, we wandered past a stand containing a caricaturist, who promptly dashed off a drawing of Arthur and I, pictured below!
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23 , 23 Apr 2008 21:44:00 GMT - National Compost Awareness Week
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us. ~Henrik Tikkanen
As part of our ongoing environmental strategy, we are supporting National Compost Awareness Week. We have a Swedish made hot composter for disposing of our food and biodegradable consumables waste, which seems be working well. However we have now decided to expand upon this idea by installing a hot composter, along with its supporting ancilliaries, into one of our prime mover (heavy transport vehicles). This will be ideal for events that last more than one day, meaning food and other degradable waste can be disposed of immediately, instead of either being stored for transport back to our base, or disposed of into landfill. More details can be found at National Compost Awareness Week.
We have received a number of offers of events from new clients based on our "green" policies, so things seem to be panning out as we wanted with an increase in work helping to offset the money we are spending on things like recycling stations etc.
We are also waiting for a consultation with a bio diesel expert who can hopefully advise us on what we would need to do to switch our generators over to more sustainable fuels. If the switch is possible then we are looking at obtaining a micro biofuel processing system that we have found. Basically you pour waste cooking oil into the bottom of it, add a few chemicals and eight hours later you can pump the fuel straight into your vehicle. WIth the ridiculous cost of fuel it is a system that would probably pay for itself pretty quickly.
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22 , 22 Apr 2008 00:06:00 GMT
