Over a week has passed since we welcomed Doug Scott OBE back to the cafe to give this year’s presentation ‘A Crawl Down the Ogre’ & what a night it was. My apologies for not writing earlier but there were a few loose ends to tie up in order to make my reflection on the night more complete.
The night itself was a tremendous success, the feedback we’ve received has been unanimous praise for the enthralling tale delivered in Doug’s unassuming humorous style, the great work of Doug’s charity CAN & for the sitting room fireside atmosphere which our venue provided. We were packed to the rafters with 100 (exactly) people in the room.
For those who haven’t seen Doug’s presentation this year you still have the choice of seeing him in other parts of the U.K. simply go to CAN’s web-site for details. However if those venues are too far afield do the next best thing & come into the Cafe & buy his newly published book which covers both the Mountains Origins as well as Doug’s & Chris’ amazing retreat & rescue. These copies are all signed by Doug with 100% of the £20 price going to CAN.
Now for those loose ends:-
On the night we handed Doug another cheque for the Melamchi School, this was for £8,900.00 bringing the total raised by Reach Out for Nepal to £25,666.78. This is a little over the funds budgeted to fit out the Hostels, Main School Buildings & Science Lab. but of course budgets are just that so we will be meeting with CAN over the winter to review actual costs & assess where any left over funds can be allocated.
But CAN’S general funds also received a boost on the night, firstly we handed a cheque over for £2,365.00 covering 11 signed prints of Doug’s photography. Ticket sales through the cafe contributed a further £1,460 again all going to CAN with potentially up to another £700 of ticket sales through Eventbrite. On the night Doug auctioned a variety of prints (I was outbid 3 times before I eventually secured one & am still kicking myself for not putting in one final bid for Broad Peak which reached the highest price on the night). These together with books & artefacts sales exceeded more than £2,000 so well done to everyone who contributed to a fabulous bonus for CAN. A word of thanks to the glamorous boy & girl helpers whom Doug pulled out of the audience to help with the auction aka Nick & Andy respectively. The good news for those who haven’t secured a print is that we still have 5 prints left to sell, with signatures of some of the mountaineering legends on them they are in my opinion great value.
Some friends have said to us that they’d wished they’d seen Doug here rather than at a bigger less in-formal theatre, I can thoroughly understand why & rest assured we both hope & expect next year they/you will have the opportunity to do so once again.
We look forward to extending our relationship with Doug & all of his wonderful team at Community Action Nepal.
