The 50th Anniversary CLA Game Fair - Day 1

What to do and not to do.......

Well here I am at the end of the first day of the 50th CLA Game Fair. However, due to one of the perrenial, if not the perrenial, problem of game fairs, past and present, that is traffic, there are still 1000's here as I type this.

Indeed, traffic delays meant that both it took an absolute age to get in but my press breakfast was a washout. Oh the pain of dealing with the press ! But never mind, I managed to catch up with a number either on the Just Ask stand or elsewhere.

My day started at the rather early hour of 6.00 am where I needed to dress the stand. But in fact, it actually started at 3.00 this morning as I had a nightmare and couldn't get back to sleep. The nightm are is relevant for just two days ago my normal caterer for the stand decided it was not financially viable. This was on Tuesday, 3 days before the start. Not good I'm afraid !

Unfortunately my next option fell away late on Wednesday and so I had to turn to Rushyford Game, a new CLA member from Durham. And what that proved for both me and him. For me, he saved my bacon and for him, his stand was humming, making the decision to come very good business sense.

But I digress. The nightmare was that my new caterer was not there on site and all my events cancelled. Not a happy event. Unfortunately, I then kept turning this over in my mind and could not go to sleep - so I thought, let's get up (remember it's 3.00 am so I've had about 4 and a half hours sleep) and do some work. Fortunately the "prophecy" failed to materialise - I was on site at 6.00am and Rushyford Game was in the right place. Bliss !

In summary today was betterfthan 2 years ago and believe me Saturday and Sunday will be even better !

Speak to you all tomorrow.

Dr Charles Trotman – Head of Rural Business Development

An economist, advises on rural economic issues, particularly food policy, rural tourism, equine issues and telecommunications policy.

Phone: 020 7460 7939
FAX: 020 7235 4696
Email charles.trotman@cla.org.uk