by Kizzy on Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:26 am
Boy, am I glad Ewan and I paid by card! I'm no expert on these things, but it does seem that we need to tighten up the way we approach the methods of those dinners.
I appreciate that there are often as many hassles ticketing dinners in advance as there are not ticketing them. Might a possible solution be:
1. Dinner advertised as per usual.
2. Steward prints out lots of tickets.
3. Debaters make their way to Balaka.
4. Steward stands at door. Debaters exchange money for tickets.
(at this point, anyone who wants to prove they did so, might want to initial the back of their tickets. Makes it much easier later on)
5. Those who want to have wine (if it's not included in the meal) order it at the bar. Yes, it's a hassle, but saves us the problem of horrible bills later.
6. The wonderful folk at the Balaka come and take our orders. They take tickets from us at the time of ordering.
7. Wine flows and curry is consumed!
This avoids the difficulties at the end of the night, where - dare I say it? - alcohol can confuse even the best of us, people are keen to get home/to the pier, and nobody wants to hang around. All monies are exchanged either before the dinner, or at the point of wine purchase.
Incidentally, [assumes what Ewan calls the Scary Voice, honed over years of practice herding schoolies to debates] I think it's bloody shameful of any individuals to enjoy the excellent food, wine, conversation and hospitality of the society without paying their way. I can understand why in this case it's not ideal to pursue an investigation of who these people were, but I hope that if there were any individuals for whom non-payment wasn't an accident (and I'm really hoping it was just a moment of forgetfullness that prevented payment) that they feel thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
[back to normal voice] In other thoughts, though, I really enjoyed the debate and dinner. Great fun!