Fun Fair, indeed

Tonight was the last meeting of the Holy Cross Fun Fair Committee. I joined this year because a woman that works with Ben and lives in our neighborhood is heading it up and needed some volunteers. Being that this is Travis's first year at that school and I really don't have any other dealings with the Holy Cross community, I'm a little clueless as to what on earth I could possibly contribute to this group.

At any rate, the Fun Fair is in a couple weeks, and I believe will turn out quite nicely. The organizer, Lisa, assigned everyone a nice little job, and I hit the jackpot of jobs by being asked to coordinate the outside games. These are the big, fancy games that we hire a vendor to handle -- so there's not much to my job other than finding a good vendor and picking out what looks like fun. Lisa knew I would be likely be overwhelmed with anything that involved actual work, seeing as how this was my first experience with the Fun Fair, so she set me up nicely.

So I called around and talked to a few vendors, and then one name that came up was one that I see every year when one of my largest clients has this large annual festival that I help coordinate the insurance for -- and this vendor came well recommended. So I get their prices, ask if they could offer us a discount because its "for the kids" (as if all the other events they do involving big inflatable toys aren't for the kids -- no, I'm sure these get rented out for office parties and hunting clubs all the time), and its a church and we don't have that big of a budget and so they offer us a discount and I gather all the info and present it to Lisa.

And she flips out. Turns out, the pricing I got is about half to one-third of what they typically spend on this event each year, and the stuff is better too. So we have a bouncy house, an inflatable slide, an inflatable obstacle course, and a gigantic rock wall all to be set up in the parking lot of the elementary school for the kiddies to enjoy.

So, now, my job is done, it was super-easy, my volunteering experience for Holy Cross was incredibly enjoyable and not stressful at all. I intend to tell Lisa that, as she did a phenomenal job coordinating the whole thing and I am terribly impressed by what she was able to get done. But I have a sneaking suspicion that she's swindling me into thinking it is always this easy so I'll be on board for future committees.

I'm just kidding. Kind of.