King and Fools Day!!!

For my Event Management class we had to form a team and plan and organize an event. We became the A-Team, and our event was a King and Fools sports day. The goal of the event was to raise as much money as possible for the Alan Kerins Foundation. Alan Kerins is a hurling player here in Ireland, and he organized the African project where they go down to Africa and build schools and such that the people need. I volunteered to be the assistant chairperson because no one else wanted the job. Well I never thought that the chair would get sick and end up in the hospital the week of the event. I had to quickly step up to the challenge of assuming the head chair position, kind of scary, but all in all everything worked out great. We started off the event with HUG WEEK to get the word around. Alan came and we wore bright orange aprons around the college and gave hugs for 2 euro. At first it was a bit intimidating going around to people I didn't know and asking them to pay me 2 euro for a hug, but it turned out to be great fun. The actual event took place on March 31st, and it was a huge success. The weather was perfect, and we had a fair turnout. The main event of the day was a five a side soccer tournament that 13 teams participated in. Some of the other highlights include a tug of war with the lecturers vs the students, a penalty shoot out, novelty races, and a puc fada tournament. Papa Johns provided pizza and it was a great day. The biggest job of the day was the clean up (some of the team members took off right after the games ended). We had 6 goal posts that we had borrowed from a soccer club that had to be returned by 6:00. Boy was that a big job. We had to get two people to carry the goals about a fifteen minute walk down the street. I ended up making 3 trips, and boy did we get some funny stares from all the people in their cars that we passed. I guess it would look funny if you saw a goal post walking down the sidewalk toward you. The guys that I was carrying the goals with were sure impressed with how tough I am, and they even said they owed me a pint at the afterparty that night. My shoulders and legs were sure sore the next day though. Cleanup finally finished a little after six and I hurried back to my apt. to shower and eat before heading to the city center to decorate for the after party. At the after party we awarded the winners of the day with their prizes, and we also had a big raffle of all of the sponsorship items that we collected. After the raffle we presented our lecturer with flowers. We ended up making over 3000 euros, and it was a great day. I am sad that the event is over, I had so much fun getting to know all of the team members and it was a great experience. GO A-TEAM!!!