h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This type of thing is typically British and is certainly not part of German culture. A village, or church, or school fête is devoted almost entirely to eating and drinking here. However, there is an opening for children's entertainment, although it will take several generations to get the older ones off their backsides.

There are some really great ideas about, I am sure, which involve little outlay, lots of fun, and also are quite lucrative for whatever charity the fête is in aid of.

I am thinking of such things as:

- owner and dog look-alike competition
- children's "garden in a saucer" competition
- best cake baked by a man (or child, or whatever)
- Bottle stall (everyone brings a bottle of something and buys a ticket. The bottles are then raffled off. Could be ketchup, perfume, wine, beer.......)
- pony rides
- stacking crates (I'm not sure you have them in Britain, but you probably do. 5-6 crates are stacked and from then on you are suspended from a crane and have to climb up the stack and place the crates on top of each other. A very good score is about 30, but then you are probably up as far as the crane goes anyway. Safety precautions are of course very important. And you take the bottles out first)
- fancy dress competitions
- rallies (can be run by youth organisations)
- Similar to the sponge-throwing, "It's a Knockout"-type competitions, such as two people on a bar across a pool of water, trying to push each other in.

What would be really useful is to hear which activities really go down well in practice.

Small towns in the Southern US still occasionally hold these sorts of events. They are usually called County Fairs. Baking contests are generally included. Less often, you will see competitions for raising the best animal, fruit, or vegetable of whatever sort. This generally involves having the biggest whatever-it-is in the county.

The simple ones usually go down the best - hence the popularity of sponge-chucking, bran tubs, bottle stalls and little races for the children. Likewise silly pet shows with prizes for 'waggiest tail', 'best dressed pet and owner', 'floppiest ears' whatever you can think of that any much loved village pet might stand a chance of winning.
In my village we always have a fell race, a plum pie competition and a 'coal race' up the steepest road in the village with every entrant carrying a sack of coal on their back. I admit this last is probably just a local speciality.

I'm often involved in a fete we have a couple of villages from me in Norfolk, Horseshoes is a stall I often run, which is basically a sheet of wood on the ground and a metal stake one end, the horseshoes are thrown by the punter and the object is to hook the horseshoes around the stake, it is agonisingly difficult to achieve!

The one with the biggest fruit and best vegetables etc was called the Village Horticultural Show and was separate from the Village Fête. But some villages may put it all together.

Horseshoes (or quoits) is a good idea, and cheap. What our kids do to amuse the littl'uns is collect tins (usually cat food tins, because you have large amounts of the same size) and rinse them out. These are put in pyramids for the littl'uns to chuck tennis balls at. All afternoon, my boys are rebuilding pyramids of tins!

And they pin balloons to boards which the participants have to burst with darts.

Brings me back to my childhood days in the 70s growing up in an English village. As a budding 8 year-old Electrical Engineer I put together and ran a "Beat the Buzz" stand - I thought it was rather high-tech and revolutionary, to compete with the plate breakers and cake sale. One of the best things was whipping wet sponges at the headmaster, or failing that whatever subordinate teacher would stand in. Our school held a costume competition and precession, which was great fun for us kids and presumably parents alike. My brother and I once went as a pantomime type homemade dragon, with a tail made of empty beer cans covered in crepe paper.

I think it was always sunny on those days - or else my memory is a little romantic.

Likewise in the US and elsewhere the best fun is always had in these small communities, where people actually do stuff with each other. Who's bright idea was it to build suburban "communities"?

Fancy dress: My parents once dressed my sister and I up as a zebra crossing. They went to a lot of trouble, my mother sewed black strips of crepe paper to our white full-length bridesmaids dresses and we wore yellow balloons on our heads. You don't see belisha beacons any more do you? And my father made a roll-up zebra crossing that we carried between us. It was too advanced for the village elders though, because we only came third or something. Our neighbour came 1st or second, she was dressed as "Miss Print" in a dress and hat entireley made of newspapers.

I suppose the elders were more stimulated by puns than visual gags.

No one probably cares about this but I'm chucking it in anyway, the small place from which I origionate holds a bizzare event at the beginning (or End of first week of) june called Milngavie week (Pronounced mill-guy but not spelt that way for no apparent reason)(Milngavie is the name of the town) basically, it all starts with "Gala Day" where the main town centre plays host to usual village fete things. There is also the "Spot the error" competition where local shops place a deliberate mistake in theri window and the ocals have to find it. Only other things are a fancy dress parade where parents get to humiliate their younger children, and teh crowning of the gala queen. Thsi event involves a primary 7 girl (usually 11 or 12) taken from one of teh schools (they take turns) and chosen by her peers. The lord provist corwns her and everybody wonders why tehy bothered to come out that saturday. However, teh week holds more events, usually demonstrations by local groups, a car treasure hunt (lots of locals get lost around their homes) and teh traditional duck race where you buy a plastic duck with a number on it (Which you nevre actually see) these ducks are released into the local river (The allander river) and float down the river. A catchment net is set up further down the allander and firts duck to get there wins something (or rather, ist owner wins something). The whole week gets rounded off by the highland games which used to attract proper celebraties (Sulu from star trek no less) but now can't quite muster a blue peter presenter. So thats my bizzare local fete story.

I'll try to rewrite this over the weekend, and I'll make sure Aerk, Trillian's Child (she had another one?) and Researcher 33337 (you might want to get a better name) get some credit for their promptings and suggestions.

tx

Ta greatly, and I like researcher 33337, it has that, number repeated four times feel to it. And it doesn't reveal the fact that I'm a 20 stone trucker from, milngavie.

Researcher 666 has a *much* better ring to it. But it's taken.
As of course, is U42

but legislation only goes so far. At first at least, many of the younger girls drawn in by older men, are quite willing (from my experience and I am talking about the 15yolds you see in pubs) because the thought of an older man likeing them (at least as far as I know) makes tehm feel liek they are more mature. Actually teh older guys go for them because they are easyer targets to teh more mature girls. In teh end, if no one tells, legislation is just writing.

Ok, I feel stupid, that last one was for a completely different forum. And now I seem wierder than before. Easy mistake to make with multiple windows and a slow machine, leave me alone.

I had a point but had to miss it due to my own foolishness.

sorry. I will now commit ritual suicide.

or not

Maybe some village fetes are as you describe. Could be the foundation of a good drama series (like "The Prisoner")

I just remembered another cheap and silly game we use in my village's annual fete. It's a kind of living fruit machine - 3 volunteers wear multi-pocketed aprons and fill their pockets with various items of fruit. When the punter has paid their 10p, the three volunteers juggle the fruit in their pockets until the leader says stop. They each hold up whatever fruit was in their hand at the time and if all 3 are the same the punter wins a prize. Easy and cheap to organise, great fun for the kids.