The Lord Mayor of Pendle held his Charity Ball at an arts centre in Nelson, Lancs called ACE. A very nice venue but the main function room was a little small for the 220 seated guests for dinner. So much so that it was really difficult for us to get round the room in our costumes and impossible for Lord Vader.
We were asked to arrive by 6:30pm so that we could be hidden away before all the guests started to arrive and were provided with pie n peas! Unfortunately, we were then told that we would not actually be required to make our grand, surprise entrance until about 9:30pm.
We kept ourselves entertained in the office which had been provided as a changing room with lots [and I mean lots] of silly references to Arnold Schwarzenegger and his classic one lines ..."Gotta get to da chopper" etc and at one stage, Lord Vader and two stormtroopers were chasing each other around the large meeting table in the room. You had to be there to really appreciate how funny this was but my sides hurt with laughing. Another really funny point was when two other people who were there for the night as some other form of entertainment for the Mayor's Guests, came back to the room to collect something and wondered what on earth they had walked into to... the look of surprise and fear in their faces was priceless!
Anyway, after being kept waiting for 4 hours, we were eventually called in to make our surprise entrance at 10:20pm! We assisted with collecting the raffle monies off the guests and posed for a few photos but given the late hour, did not stay for too long. I think that for us the night's event was more about the fun that we had whilst we were kept waiting but in the words of Lord Vader [i.e Daz!] this goes to show what a good unit we have now!. Not forgetting the main purpose of the night though was the Mayor's charities and it was good though to help him raise funds for The Samaritans, Womens' Refuge and Help For Heroes.
