Every Little Helps!

It's November, you're in Bridlington, Yorkshire, and you need to provide a packed lunch for 32 anglers who'll be on a beach for 6 hours without a break - what do you do? Well the last thing the value conscious volunteers from the CSSC Angling Council would do is pay the prices quoted by the hotels and other venues they use to supply the lunches. Their approach is much more hands on, involves an advanced call to the nearest supermarket and then their well practiced 'volunteer machine' swings into action.

First thing on the day of the competition Mervyn Stanley and Tony Cliff sweep through the local store picking up a selection of pre-ordered sandwiches and then hunt down the other best in store offers to make up a suitable bag of goodies. Finally a box of freezer bags, the checkouts and away they go.

Nothing remarkable there you might say, but the 32 anglers received a lunch comprising a sandwich, bottle of water, bag of Walkers crisps, a banana and two small Kit Kats (and a bag for all their rubbish) all for less than £60 the lot. Even if the bought in alternative had been £5.00 per head (and often it's far more), that's over £100 saved.

The morale of this story? A little forethought and a keen eye can help keep contain costs without compromising quality.

If you have other simple tips like this that fellow organisers might find helpful, please send them to me at Louisa.richards@cssc.co.uk