Above : "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down"
The weekend of the annual Fordell staff party, a chance to relax and enjoy some fine food and entertainment after a busy year. This year, a few different events had been arranged and things kicked off saturday morning with a thorough testing of the new sumo suits / inflatable gladiators arena / giant boxing gloves. These had arrived the weekend before and obviously needed to be extensively evaluated before being used for paying customers.
Above : Some of the staff looking a bit bloated after eating too much at the meal
After lunch the first ever Fordell Xmas Archery Competition took place. Around 15 took part, and after an hour of intense competition and underhand tactics, Ali was declared the winner overall. The event looks likely to take place annually, giving the less-gifted ones a whole year to improve or work out how to manipulate the scoring system.
A quick trip to Dalgety Bay followed for the actual Christmas meal, which was attended by over 20 and judged a success by all. After returning to Fordell, Pete Merckel (site quartermaster) gave a great slide presentation on his recent trip to Everest basecamp as part of the 7 summits expedition, after which he was presented with a few gifts to mark his upcoming retiral from his role at the site in January after many years of service.
The rest of the evening/early morning was spent with the traditonal socialising / music / karaoke (playstation-style) and pretending to be a guitar-hero with the amazing Wii (with various degrees of success).
A fairly relaxed sunday (although some crazy explorer scouts wanted some outdoor activities which had to be provided despite the freezing cold), and it was time for a few weeks break for most and chance to recover before another busy year.
