GASS The Gentlemen's Ale Sampling Society 1982-2017 35 YEARS OF BEERS
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LAUGHTER TRAINING
The Roffen Suite
Tuesday 3rd February
Organiser - JB
An amazing turnout, only Len missing (on holiday again), plus we had the welcome return of Mike Saffery as a guest.
We were presented with the lovely Leila, a professional 'Laughter Coach' who waited patiently while we consumed a quantity of laughing juice before she led us through to the main hall. We duly formed a circle and the laughing began. Starting with warm up exercises, moving on to various forms of laughing ..........
Actually, why bother to explain, let this video tell the tale!
A thoroughly enjoyable entertainment, and a big thank you to Leila who was very tolerant and put up with an enormous amount of barracking in very good part.
After Leila
departed, no doubt for a stiff whiskey and a good cry, we all sat down for
dinner and a meeting.
Most unusually the meeting was productive and achieved everything that needed to
be achieved.
MEETINGS FOR 2009
These were all agreed and are outlined on the NEXT MEETING page.
AGM 2009 - WARSAW
The choices were
Las Vegas, Warsaw and Valencia. A fair and sensible vote saw Warsaw win
12-9, so Warsaw it is.
Another bleak, grey, socialist country picked solely because it is 'cheap'.
When can we go somewhere more exciting?
(you may guess I wanted to go to Las Vegas!)
FINES
Andy was fined £5
for having too much brown.
(work that out for yourself!)
PHIL'S STRANGE CORNER
Phil R asked for his own part of the website to archive his meeting suggestions. This is mainly because they are so many and bizarre and the actual take-up of the ideas is so few and far between. He is worried that his febrile imagination is going to waste and wanted a showcase. Hence - his Strange Corner.
Hew'S SHERRY HABIT
Tony, who paid the bill for the last meeting, wanted to highlight the cost of Mr Edelelloodalloo and his Bristol Cream addiction.
Of the total bill of £620, Sherry came to £62 (33 tots@£1.90 each), 10% of the whole bill and £22 more than a months subs. Taking off the food leaves £387 in drinks, with £62 being a sixth of the total bar bill. This is because Sherry is sold by the tot in pubs.
As a comparison the Sherry consumption at The Roffen was 22 tots@£2.40 for a 50cl, total £52.80. That was one fifth of the whole bar bill of £257.
A fairly average sale price of a bottle of Sherry in a pub by the tot is £35-£45 (and no, pubs will not sell it any other way).
By comparison the bar bill for beer/wine drinkers (spirits are the exception at most meetings) for these two meetings was £15 a person. This sounds about right as it would equate to around five pints each.
Now this matter has
been raised, and the annual cost is obviously substantial, the choices appear to
be for GASS to:-
a. Accept this as a tradition
and decide to let it ride.
b. Return to the old tradition
that GASS only pays for Beer & Wine and that members pay separately for anything
else.
GASS would then not dwell on just how much we have paid out on Sherry since 1985 (£13,000 or thereabouts since you ask!!).
N.B: I mention this because, as secretary, I was asked to put the facts and the bill in the minutes (I say this to save me from another rollocking, scorching, excoriating letter from Hew - me just the messenger, just doing my job, just trying to get by, keeping my head down, doing as I am told, keeping my nose clean, not looking for any trouble mister...............).