Right, to add to the confusion of the old place going belly up, we've decided to find somewhere else as if we cant rely on the hotel being there in 7months time, then i refuse to plan everything else around it!

So...

Christchurch Harbour Hotel Will be the new venue, and the date will be Saturday 30th May 2009.

Its pretty short notice I understand, but hopefully its before everyone's summer holidays! We popped into this hotel on the off chance, and it is very impressive. In fact, even if the Orchid hadn't gone screwy, I still would have wanted to change it to here!!

I'm gonna try and work some magic with the Orchid hotel to make sure everyone gets their deposits back on their room (for those who booked early). And we should get a discounted rate for the new place.

Sorry for the confusion, its been a bit of a stress recently with everything up in the air, so to settle on a venue and date has been a bit of a relief!

Please tell me you're all free on that date

We are free.

Bosh.

we are free and have paid for the orchid so would you like us to call there or are you going to want to deal with that?

Jiminy cricket. I'm free, will check with suzie asap. We didn't book, so I'll get booking the new place when you give us the nod.

What she said

What they said.

Michelle and I are free 30 May. Is there a plan for booking yet, or is that still in progress?

Cheers,

Matt

30th May good for me too. I'll try to remember to book a room this time! =p

On a related note, and for those of you who don't know, Ween Pie has given me the great honour of being his Best Man, which I am chuffed about.

Needless to say a stag do of some description needs to be forthcoming.

How do people feel about either the 25/26 April or the 2/3/4 May (Bank Holiday)? Would be great to get as many of us out as possible. I will try and track down the non-festers as well (i.e. Marno and Drew)

Format to be confirmed - priority will be to recreate the Hawkins hayday of drinking 17 gallons and collapsing in a heap.

Any of those dates is good for me.

Bring on the wall!

Unfortunately I'll be about as far away as is humanly possible on those dates. I leave on the 29th March and get back the 4/5th of May.

Dates OK for me.

Let's make those shapes.

After all this craiziness, I'm going to add that I cannot make the stag and that at this stage, it is difficult to say what the deal is with travelling for the wedding. Jyoti is baking a pleasing sibling-sized bun for the Z-man! I don't want to jump the gun here, but with 2 kids in '09 and this non-cereal type Credit Crunch on, God knows what the world has in store for the Govmeister!

I am working on a 'will take payment for sexy times' sandwich board now.

xx

Could we therefore block out the early May Bank Holiday for Ween's Stag please?

Tart - it appears that you are leaving the country for an inordinate amount of time and therefore may miss out. Sorry.

Ween, I'll give you a bell to sort out The Plan. I may even create a BookFace group event for it.

I think you'll find it has been officially renamed Basefadger by common agreement (poll).

Yes that seemed likely, apologies Ween.

Where is he off to? I've missed a page...

Resolute, Canada - about 75degrees north. pretty far away.

2-4 May is fine for me.

for a long time? why?

Oh dear Lord! He's doing the website for the Polar Race again.

Where have you been Dannyboy?

Over the last few weeks?

Cumbra, St. Ives, Washington DC, Kuala Lumpur

tomorrow its Bangkok..

almost some kind of simple harmonic motion around the UK.

Nice work

Any news on discounts for the new venue yet?

right, i stupidly havent been on 'the fest' for a while...

to update, we have 20 rooms on hold at the new place at a rate of £110 per room. theres no deposit to pay but you might need to put your credit card details on the tab.

you can upgrade the room to a big pimpin pad, but it'll cost a bit more.

these rooms are on hold up to 6 weeks before the date, so we should be fine getting everyone in.

normally there is a minimum 2 night stay on a weekend, but you must say you're part of the hawkins riley wedding party to get the discounted rate and have the 1 night option

we both hope you can all make it, we're really excited and looking forward to the day... and it'll be good to share it all with you bunch of reprobates.

we've booked ourselves in for our private spa day for the sunday so we wont be able hang out much after the wedding, but you can always go down to the sea and/or spend the afternoon in the new forest somewhere

theres plenty to do around there, but we'll be otherwise engaged.

Awesome. We'll come up with a whacky scheme so that you guys get the whole day to yourselves without us butting in on your spa action.

I've had some news from Droo Pie

Basically, he and Simona are over in Italia for the end of May, and so they won't be able to make the wedding.

Please direct any forms of abuse in their general direction...

tish tish, you need to spank his ginger 'ass.

Bandits

Any news on the old hotel and refunds for going bankrupt etc?

I spoke to the new owners of the Orchid Hotel and their response to me asking for my deposit back was to laugh in my face and tell me to jog on. (Okay, it wasn't really, but it might as well have been).

By the way, it is no good going to your credit card company for the money back because as far as they are concerned the hotel is still operating and we could all still go and stay there.

Unfortunate, but worse things have happened. There is still a top notch wedding to celebrate, no one lost any limbs etc. It's all good.

unfortunately even my wedding insurance is giving me a big 'screw you'

we might have to go back to the original ploy of going for a weekend in Bournemouth on the 25th July weekend...

Sorry to cause all this grief... hopefully an evening BBQ including lamb kofta and thai chicken skewers at the new hotel will make up for it.

boooya!

I emailed a couple of months ago to A. Canx the room and B. Explain the situation in the hope of getting my money back. I have had no response what so ever so they can shove their crappy hotel up their arse and i hope they go under as bad service does not deserve good money, butt munchers.

If the hotel has broken contract then surely you're entitled to the deposit back.

Under credit law the credit card company is EQUALLY liable as the trader. for performance. They are not a 'last port of call'.


n.b. this only for credit, not debit cards.

Hotel hasn't broken contract, just changed owners. It's not that we are unable to stay there anymore - it's that we no longer want to. And there's a whole world of difference.

By the way, everyone should definitely cancel their rooms if they don't want to stay. Most hotels require that you cancel the booking at least 24 hours in advance otherwise they will charge you whether you stay or not.

JP is right but at least they could bother to reply! Anyway, looking forward to the kebabs as Warren says!

Fairs do's - didn't realise they still were offering the rooms.

If it is a popular time of year, maybe you can put the booking on ebay =p

Idea for the sunday after the wedding:
http://www.laserquestbournemouth.co.uk/contact.htm

Noj and Suzie visited Cambridge this weekend and we took them to a local Quazar centre. Was brilliant fun.

Thought it would be good to try to get everyone to the one in Bournemouth if people were up for it. We found particularly entertaining the thought of Pedro running around in a rather lucid Halo daydream...

Anyway - just putting it out there incase. Its £10 for 3 short 20 minute sessions (or we could play less). Not bad value for a good hour of fun.

Cheers,
Dan

surely not...

no plasma grenades... no pistol with 2x zoom. he'd be useless

Also, have you ever tried strafing in real life? Ridiculous.

...y'know i think i might have tried it once. Wasn't very effective.

Also jumping up and down isn't as good either - the hang time just isn't there.

Just a heads up - it looks like Cat and I are going to have to set off home early/mid afternoon as we're attending a do later on that day. Will still be good to grab lunch with you guys if that's the plan.

I've got some awesome iTunes DJ shizzle going on for the music at the Wedding, so please make sure you all have the 'iTunes Remote' app on your iPhone/iPod Touch - available from the iTunes App Store

When are people aiming to arive? Kickoff's at 13.30 apparently.

Thanks to Hawkins and Hawkins for inviting us. A fantastic day. Was great to see everyone, especially the happy couple.

On a more lowbrow note, for those of you who I was on the same table as yesterday and are still waiting to find out what the guaranteed method of curing hiccups is, I'll tell you:

An orgasm apparently does the trick every time. So now you know.

Warren and Em - thanks for a frickin awsome wedding. I & Cat both loved it and thought it was beautiful. Cat had VERY positive things to say about everyone and the group as a whole so thank you for making her feel welcome on her first sortie into the Fest and she is looking forward to the next get together (Topgolf ?!)

I have successfully managed to persuade her to get SF4 for her 360...still working on Halo (Pete - good effort this morning).

Right..hic...I'm off to..hic.. surf some..hic..random websites.

Yes thanks guys, it was a proper job.

Big-pimpin. That is all there is to say.

You guys understand of course that it would have been way more superduperfantabulowikiwahwah if I was there. And there'd be a few less bottles of Pimms too.

Big hugs all round and a big kiss and cuddle to the Winchester lot as well!

Govi*

Congrats you two - am so glad I caught you before it all went down like China town!