For the past couple of months, Lorraine and I have been going to Gunther, the local home for the aged to work with those residents who are interested in singing and forming a choir to perform at their annual fund raising fete. The fete was last evening, the October 25 and the Gunther Groovers performed seven songs of their own choice for the assembled audience. As far as I am concerned, it went well, an improvement on last years effort.
Saturday was an interesting day for me in that we planned to go to Gunther in time for the Gunther Groovers episode, have some food and a look around and come home. That all changed with a phone call from one of the staff members telling me that the group who they had hired for entertainment after the Groovers had advised the that they were unable to make it.
She then asked if I might be able to do the two hours from six to eight, an important part of the fete. They make their money by running what we refer to as chook raffles. They sell one hundred tickets, spin the wheel and provide a frozen chook (or chicken for ther unitiated) to the person who holds the number as shown on the wheel. This happens three times for each hundred tickets – so they make $200 minus the cost of three frozen chickens from each round. I am not sure but I think they had about twelve rounds.
I have just been told that it wasn’t a chook raffle but a ham raffle. That makes a lot of sense given that Christmas is not all that far away. So instead of spinning for frozen chooks they were spinning for frozen hams.
I was not real keen to do the job because I had just unpacked all my gear from the car. We had been to Gunther the night before to do our monthly “Gunther Rocks” program. We decided to do it so repacked the gear into the car and motored on out to Gunther.
My job between 6 and 8pm was to try and keep people there and in spending mood for the chook raffles. I was helped by one of the staff members who danced a couple of dances from her home in Papua New Guinea. Gunther has a number of staff members who come down from PNG to work in the venue and it was great to see her dance.
It all worked out well and I quite enjoyed myself. Lorraine did too, buying a number of tickets in the raffle. And it wasn’t a late night. Still had to unpack the car the next morning though.
