UNICEF Event 2005
26th December 2004, a day known to most of us as Boxing Day, the
day after Christmas, a time where children are enjoying their new
toys given to them by proud parents and grandparents, aunties and
uncles.
Their parents eyes glowing with happiness and joy, after
sharing so much love and laughter with friends and family over the
festive weekend. The story in Southeast Asia however, was
unfolding while the world still slept. Families torn apart,
innocent and vulnerable children left orphaned or dying, homes
which in these extremely poor countries are such valuable sources
of shelter, engulfed by the fierce oceans. For mothers and
fathers this was a day of mourning.
It was on this note that I realised that there is so much we
could do to help the children. Rather than sit helplessly before
the television feeling sympathy and compassion, something in my
heart called me to do something. After shedding my own tears
attempting to understand or relate to the mothers and fathers who
only the day before were playing with their children. Within
a matter of minutes, everything had gone including the children,
who were helpless and unable to protect themselves. I made
contact with Helen White at UNICEF and her passion for helping to
raise funds for unfortunate children all over world, gave me the
motivation and strength to set myself a personal challenge of
raising £10,000 by March 2005, which may have been slightly
optimistic!
The idea of a ‘Dinner and Dance’ came to mind almost
instantaneously, it almost felt like someone was telling me what to
do. On balance, the idea did appear ingenious and to my
delight, I realised that such an event would not only be suitable
for Regents College students, but would be a perfect opportunity to
invite all my friends and family. Naturally, having the
mindset of a business student, the more people I could bring to the
event, the more potential funds I could raise!
My first step was to make a list of possible venues and how many
people I should expect to attend this event. Being a very
optimistic person, I set myself a target to sell 450 tickets, but
this brought on another rather big challenge; trying to find a
location near Regent’s Park that could cater for and accommodate
450 and without charge (or as near to free of charge as
possible).
Trying to overcome this challenge was, as predicted, like
staring in Mission: Impossible 3! I went to speak to Regent’s
events management department first, and to my disappointment, they
could barely cater for 150 people and said that they would
definitely not be able to cater for the food within my
budget. As I was trying to think of other alternatives, the
receptionist suggested that I ask Westminster University Campus, on
Marylebone Road literally a 5 minute walk away. In my
excitement, I almost fell over several times running down to the
university.
Five minutes prior to this point the path to my goal seemed
obscured and so far away, but maybe it was fate, my motivation or
that I seriously underestimated my powers of persuasion.
After meeting with Mary Dipalmo from the Events Management team, a
lady with so much support and passion for what I wanted to achieve
and much negotiation, I had managed to convince Mrs. Dipalmo and
her superior Mr. Dyson to allow me to use the state of the art
Chiltern Hall and Café West at no charge! However, there was
a catch, in order for me to use the Chiltern facilities free of
charge, I had to use the catering facilities provided by the onsite
caterers. At this point, I was so confident that my powers of
persuasion were working that I approached the catering manger,
Venda Bedier with a glowing smile, which could have easily
interpreted as a ‘cheesy grin’. To my surprise, after a five
minute friendly negotiation, she agreed to provide a three course
meal for both vegetarians and non-vegetarians for an extremely
competitive price of £2 per person. It was at this point I realised
that this was no longer a dream, and for the first time in my 21
years of existence, I had thrown myself in the deepest end of a
swimming pool. The event was actually going to happen!
After setting a date, delayed in my anxiety and
excitement. I realised there would be no ‘dance’ without
music. While this trail of terror was running through my
mind; I was in the gym, trying to bench press a hundred
kilograms. When I had a light bulb moment, I realised that
there were two potential DJ’s and they actually were in the same
room. My recently acquainted friend and gym partner Neil
Wetherston (DJ Nugget) and a well established friend and fitness
instructor Steve Farrel (DJ Fo’Real). Now I was seriously
getting spooked, was this really fate or was I the fourth wise
man?
Being a business student, who has a basic understanding of the
importance of marketing I was in desperate need of promotional
material, like flyers, posters and tickets to promote the charity
event. A few days passed by and there was complete stalemate
on my battlefield, no further progress had been made. I was
beginning to realise that to accomplish this challenge, I was going
to need the help of everyone that I knew in London.
Little did I know what was going to happen next. To my
absolute amazement, I received a telephone call from Helen White
from UNICEF, and she gave me the next piece to my unfinished
puzzle. She had received a call from Ian Minchin
(Circularising LTD) from London who had donated 4 hours of free
print time and material and she said that I could use the donated
time and material for this event. I immediately designed the
flyers and tickets and e-mailed them to him. A week later,
Mr. Minchin actually couriered the printed flyers and posters to
Regent’s College free of charge. I was so blown away; the
jigsaw picture was unfolding piece by piece by itself.
The tickets were originally priced at £17 per person, but after
receiving negative feedback on the price of the tickets, I had no
option but to reduce the price of the tickets to £10, which was to
include a bottle of wine, a complimentary raffle ticket and a three
course meal, not to mention a funky, live music mix of the best
House, Hip-Hop and R’n’B.
To my dismay, I had distributed tickets to most of my close
friends, family and acquaintances, and with only two weeks to go,
tickets were not selling as well as I had hoped. My father would
often make sarcastic comments like ‘Looks like this event is not
going to happen, you need to sell some tickets!’ or ‘You haven’t
planned this very well have you?’ I was almost beginning to
convince myself that people’s charitable spirits had blown away in
the cold winter winds. But, I have never given up so easily
when faced with an obstacle in my path and there were innocent
children dying while I was contemplating throwing everything I had
organised so far into the pan.
I took some time to think of my sales strategies, and I decided
that I will set up a stand at the Regents College reception to
convince my fellow students, friends and lecturers that donating to
charity can be fun and as a society that is far better off; we
could help by having a great night with live music and great
food! To my relief sales slowly picked up day by day and the
staff showed amazing support and nothing could have been done
without the support and encouragement of my close friends Niro
Cooke, Adeela, Prateek Mittal, Benny, Angad Marwah and Pranay
Jaishani.
Eventually, by 24th February 2005, with less than 24 hours to go
before the Dinner and Dance, there were 100 confirmed guests.
As I went to sleep that night, I could feel the butterflies
churning in my stomach, tomorrow was going to be my make or break
moment. I was so nervous, yet so excited, that to wake up was
going to require more than just a loud alarm! At this point in time
I was standing on the top of my mountain and the only way I could
go now was down. So what could possibly go wrong after so
many plans had been made and so many efforts had been made to sell
tickets?
Well, I was in for the shock of my life, after completing two
difficult examinations, there was an immense pressure lifted from
my shoulders, and as I walked out of the college grounds with
eagerness to get started on preparations, I received the worst news
that the sound engineers and hire company had let us down, and at
this point in time I had no sound system and with only 3 hours to
go, the entire night was at stake. I felt like throwing
myself off a cliff, so many emotions were running through my
head. With my cell phone ringing constantly, I was in
desperate need of a secretary and then like an angel sent from
heaven, my girlfriend, Devisha arrived from Leicester and my close
friends were all ready to help too.
Now, I actually had to get a sound system from the somewhere in
London, through the peak hour congestion of central London and
collect one of the DJ’s and his equipment from the other side of
London within two hours. Luckily, my father being a keen
music enthusiast knew a few people in the right places. He
immediately left work and dropped everything to pick up and deliver
the substitute sound system. His timing could not have been
more perfect, he had the speakers set up on their stands ready to
be connected to the amplifier, as myself and Adeela arrived with
the DJ and his equipment.
My wonderful team of friends including my extremely charitable
girlfriend had set up all the tables with flower arrangements and
candles and Chiltern Hall was nevermore ready for the charity event
of the year. Everything had finally fallen into place; all
the pieces except the guests were making up the puzzle.
The night began slightly later than planned at 7.20 p.m., with
the music pumping out at almost 500 watts from the powerful sound
system, the bass line could be heard as far as the London
Planetarium. As the guests arrived in groups, more and more
money was being raised from those buying their tickets on the door,
the aroma of the dinner, waited to be served could be smelt all
over the hall. Candles were lit on all the tables and the
night was running smoothly, everybody was full of energy ready to
dance!
As the night went on, little did I know that Devisha and Adeela
were collecting money from guests as I had carelessly promised I
would perform my Michael Jackson impersonation if enough money was
in the pot after collections during the night! At around
9.30p.m, Devisha sat down beside me and emptied out the blue
donation pot, and convinced me that I would seriously disappoint my
guests if I failed to perform. At this point I was so stunned
that I did not know whether I should shout at her or admire her
ingenuity as I was rather hoping that people had forgotten about my
careless promise in order to increase sales. I quickly ran
into the restroom and practiced a few basic moves and made sure
that I could still do the moonwalk. I could not remember the
dance routine to the epic 1980’s hit ‘Smooth Criminal’ so the best
I could do was to improvise, personally I felt that the
impersonation was a disaster as I lacked practice, however my
friends and family lie very well and Matthias Feist jumping around
like a deranged kangaroo next to me made me look flawless in my
movement!
The final event before the night was drawn to a close was the
long awaited raffle, in which the first prize was six months gym
and spa membership kindly donated by Living Well Health Clubs PLC
(Russell Square Premier, part of the Hilton Group), second prize
was a top of the range Calvin Klein designer watch, donated by
Station Jewellers, Barking. The third prize was a bottle of
champagne donated by the generous caterers themselves (Scholarest
Catering) and the runner up prize was a limited edition teddy bear
and hand made exquisite flower arrangement designed and produced by
Urvashi Mavani from Leicester.
The ultimate aim of this event was to raise money for the
children in Asia to give them a chance to make the best of an
extremely horrific situation, and although I did not reach my
optimistic goal of £10,000 we did manage a commendable £2,400 and
more importantly most of you were there supporting the children and
UNICEF yet having a great night at the same time.
UNICEF are not just working in Asia, but in Ethiopia, Sudan and
many other under developed countries, where children are suffering
from war, famine, starvation, death and disease. The UNICEF
society at Regent’s College needs your support, we need you to join
the society and show your support for these innocent children who
have not chosen their own fate to live in such suffering and
pain.
Thank you all for the love and support and hope to see you at
the next event!
Amar Lodhia
(Student Representative, 1A and Head of the UNICEF Society at
Regent’s Business School London)