What an evening!

Posted by Alex on Mar 7, 2009 in Blog | Comments

So its finally over but what a night it was. I arrived at the town hall about 11am after heading to Take 5 for a lovely fry up which kept us going all the way. When we arrived at the Hall we grabbed everything we could think of and got everything into place. Then around 1pm we started our rehearsals. We kicked off with me moaning and saying how hard the day was going to be. Well i can certainly confirm it was a very hard day. Most of us had the sniffles or soar throats, just bad luck i guess! It took us a few attempts to get everything right on stage but by the time we had heard the rehearsals for Poppy Lopez and Georgina Bates we knew deep down that the ceremonies fate was sealed.

At 6pm we got ourselves all dressed up and got into our positions. Michael down on the door selling tickets to newcomers and handing out the reserved tickets. Rhiannon Hope holding the ever growing crowd from bursting into the main hall and Tara MacPhee our house photographer who shown them to there seats. All 3 of them did a fantastic job and by 7:15 we had kicked off.

We opened with Wells City Band playing the National Anthem. The second those instruments hit there lips the room woke up and we knew that everything was going just how we had hoped. Then the performance of all performances, Georgina Bates accompanied by Chloe Harrington. It was amazing and for those of you who were there you will know what i mean! She then went on to present the First award to Mr and Mrs Argent on there sons behalf as he was busy in the 3rd world working and fundraising. I then presented an award to Roz Dommet for her work with the Ashcott Mother and Toddler group. Then our lighting technician and Deputy Stage Manager Mike presented an award to Children’s World. Georgina then returned on to the stage and presented the next award to the Mid Somerset Diabetes UK group which was accepted by the founder chairman David Brunt. Once david had said a few words we moved on to the Lions club which was met with a large cheer from the audience. The atmosphere by now was fantastic. So we needed something to really bring the first half to a close. The last award before interval was going to Sue Wilton for her work with the Christmas Card Scheme in Ashcott and we suprised Lyn the lady who began the scheme with a suprise award.

We then heading quickly into the interval where we had lots of food and refreshments for people. Sadly i didn’t get my hands on a ham sandwich but there is always next year. The interval was so busy it was unbelievable. We sold nearly 600 of the 1000 raffle tickets we had which was an amazing achievement. Once people had cleared out the food we got everything back into there seats and the Wells City Band brought us back on track.

We then moved on to the second half and we kicked off with the wonderful Poppy Lopez her performance was amazing and i will never forget it. She went on to present the sports awards to Mike Sadler, Anna Butler and Wendy Rousell. Then on to Frances Thomson teacher at Crispin School for all her hard work in the community and her work with Kenya and Masana in particular.  She gladly accepted the award and was nearly reduced to tears of happiness. Then it was my time to come back on stage. I remember saying “Its me again, surprise” well it made me laugh. I was met with another warm welcome and proceeded on to the Glastonbury and Street Rotary Club. Then we had a set of awards to hand out to the participants of the Light Up a Life services which took place across Mid Somerset. We caught up with millfield earlier in the week which you will find in one of my earlier blog posts so it left us to present the award to Brookside and they were very happy to accept it. Jemma Lawson was next to be rewarded by Michael and she said how pleased she was to be receiving the award. Finally our award to the Martha Care Trust which was accepted by Martha’s Mother Maggie Michshick she got very emotional when she spoke of her daughter and was very pleased that the work she and her supporters had done was being recognised. The amazing Wells City Band took us to a close, following this a few presentations and then all it left me to do was to close the ceremony.

It was such an amazing evening for me. All the comments i received from people were so supportive and everyone was telling me how much they enjoyed it and how it was alot more than what they were expecting. I must say there were times where i was getting rather emotional because i really have put my heart and soul into this project since October of last year. Luckily there was enough lovely ladies back stage for the odd hug and supportive message. Thanks to everyone who made the Pride of Central Somerset possible it was a milestone in my life and i hope i will return to do it again sometime. Thank you all!

(The DVD Set of the Pride of Central Somerset is now available. It contains a feature length film of the ceremony and CD containing all the photographs from the night. Details on how to order the set will be posted shortly)