Blaggers Banquet: The Big Night

The big night came and went, and it was marvellous! Bloggers pulled together to create a truly unique and fantastic event for which tickets were purchased by generous supporters, all of whom seemed to have a great time!

We raised just over £3,000 in ticket sales for the Blaggers Banquet, held on the 15th November, in London's Hawksmoor restaurant (thank you, Hawksmoor!).

So what did our customers get for their money? A range of fantastic drinks (which kept flowing all evening), beautiful canapés, a truly delicious multi-course meal and raffle tickets to win a towering pile of fantastic prizes. All this got them in the mood to put their hands up again and again, allowing us to raise over £3,300 in the auction on the night. Oh, and they each left with a bursting full goodie bag too!

That's well over £6,000 and we're not finished yet! (See below).

Some bloggers excelled in blagging food and drink provisions for the night as well as raffle and auction prizes. Some worked out menus and invented cocktails. Some took on kitchen-prep and cooking duties and others put together goodie bags. And of course, the front of house team served the punters with all that food and drink. And there were a myriad other tasks from creating menus and name stickers to arranging deliveries and taking on pick ups to tidying up afterwards! The entire team was pulled together by Niamh, whose brainchild this event has been.

What was I doing? On the night, I attended as a diner but my main job has been the IT side. I set up the Ebay and Paypal accounts and got the tickets on sale, and dealt with any payment enquiries. And created a door list for the night. (Don't even get me started on what a nightmare Paypal has been to deal with - I understand that they need to be watchful against money laundering activities but those of us who are legitimate have to jump through so many damn hoops; they make it so damned difficult that I'm surprised the only people with the patience to persevere aren't the criminals they're trying to thwart!)

I have also had the pleasure of dealing with a number of lovely suppliers who've responded generously to my blagging requests for food, drink and prizes! (Thank you, again!)

My biggest job started only after the banquet evening was over - we blagged so many fantastic prizes that we're now running an online auction which we expect to last for at least a month! Every day I'll be listing another great item that you can bid on, all donated by our kind and generous suppliers. I'm also still following up payments for tickets and on-the-night auction wins.

If you couldn't attend, you can still participate by visiting our auction page regularly and bidding generously on the wonderful items on offer.

Here are a few of my pictures of the night. You can also see a much larger set, including all the preparation, cooking etc., taken by Foodbymark, here.

Kavey's Pics