Hi,
 
Well, since I subjected you all to 3 postings advertising this event, I
thought I'd better give you a "match report" <grin>...
 
Here goes.
 
The venue was the Belmont Memorial Hall in Lower Hutt.  The way the hall
was laid out worked well, thanks to the committee testing the layout out
before hand rather than just relying on a paper plan (yes I am paranoid).
 
Boy did we seriously underestimated the amount of time to set up (3.5
hours) and clean up (2 hours).  This meant that embarrassingly the frolic
was quite late in starting, but no one seemed to mind too much - there was
plenty already set up to keep people and ferrets amused.  The ferret fun
area was especially popular during this time.
 
Twenty humans attended and a similar number of ferrets, plus of course the
committee of four and their ferrets.  This was on par with expectations,
but actual entries in events was low.
 
Given the low event entry numbers, we thought we would extend the
socialising time between events, however it became apparent that the
original time allowed for between events was about right, so we stuck
with this (more or less) to keep things on a roll.  So we started late
and finished slightly early, however the overall timings for eventing /
socialising felt about right.
 
Some events worked better than others, but that did not seem to detract
from the fun as it was quite amusing watching some of the ferrets totally
disregard their humans guidance, treat tempting and just plain pleading to
'play the game'.  Things that normally are no problems for ferrets, such as
racing through tubes and begging suddenly became difficult "when the lights
came on".  Too much pressure for some of the ferrets to handle I guess
<grin>.
 
Prizes and expenses were met by Pet New Zealand Magazine, Ferret PAWS (NZ)
Inc, Virbac Laboratories and individual committee members.  Thank you all!
 
We had four volunteers to assist the committee on the day, including one
all the way from Levin (over an hours drive) and a long lost acquaintance
(small world!) who is currently 'in between' ferrets.  As it turned out,
there was not too much for the volunteers to do.  The organisation of the
volunteers was the only part of the frolic (in my opinion) that was not
organised well.  I feel bad about that and we will definitely do better
next time.
 
The merchandise stand was great.  I don't know how much was sold in total,
but I certainly bought quite a bit!
 
My ferrets Grover and Snuff were the designated patting ferrets and they
were their typical mellow selves.  They were very popular with both
children and adults.
 
We had quite a few serious enquiries about adopting and fostering, so it
will be interesting to see what if anything becomes of those enquiries.
Three of the four adoptables were at the frolic.  Rangi the adoptable I'm
fostering hid in his hammock most of the time!
 
And the winners were:
TUBE RACING          1st Little Dude (Jimi), 2nd Grizzly (Erin)
CUP TIP              1st Panda, 2nd Roscoe (Glen Weallens)
OBSTACLE COURSE      1st Candy (Lili Griffiths),
                     2nd Tazz (Lili Griffiths)
HEAVIEST JILL        Flur (Maleish Weallens)
HEAVIEST HOB         Roscoe (Glen Weallens)
LONGEST JILL         Panda
LONGEST HOB          Roscoe (Glen Weallens)
BEST BEGGAR JILL     Flur (Maleish Weallens)
BEST BEGGAR HOB      Tazz (Lili Griffiths)
 
Photograph Competition:
MOST PHOTOGENIC      Fez (Laura Swann)
FUNNIEST PHOTO       Mack (Margaret Smith)
CUTEST PHOTO         Mack (Margaret Smith)
 
Congratulations!
 
Initially, I rated the event a 'moderate success' as I felt we had let
the side down slightly by starting late and not organising the volunteers
better.  However after reading the comments in the guest book, I think I
must upgrade my rating to 'almost total success'.  Twelve of the twenty
people commented in the guest book (not a bad ratio) and comments ranged
from 'very good' to 'excellent - more events like this please!'.  As much
as we appreciate the kind words, we were hoping to get some constructive
criticism on what folks liked and didn't like and what they'd like to see
in the future, which we didn't really get.  Still I think the committee
has a fair idea of what worked and what didn't.
 
Given that the none of the committee had ever done anything like this
before, I think we did quite well.  I think the secret was to start
planning well ahead of time, have a good team and have a checklist to
assign tasks from and monitor progress against (I'm a check list freak).
Everyone on the team did a great job.  I would like to take this
opportunity to thank Colleen Burke, Jessica Robertson and David Howes for
their support - it meant a lot.  Thanks are also due to John Chessum and
the rest of the Ferret PAWS Exec; again your support meant a lot.  A big
thank you to the volunteers and sponsors.  And finally thanks to those
fuzzy lovers who came and helped make the event the success it was.
 
David Holender
Wellington Coordinator
Ferret PAWS (NZ) Inc
[Posted in FML issue 3209]