Saturday's J J Market Christmas Charity Fair -- Did You Go, What Can We Do Better Next Time?

[OldeBellPedr]

I attended with wife and child. My 5 son had a great time! We bought him a gun for 95 baht which, once he had discovered a few friends who'd also bought them, enabled him to re-enact some long gone battle with vigour! Once he' tired of that, he spend a pleasant half hour or so playing with the (very tolerant) puppies at Care for Dogs. I bought a bagful of books for between 5 and 20 baht each and the wife did what many Thais do best and ate. She praised the somtam -something she only does when the standard is superlative! I enjoyed a Turkish kebab. It was hot, something the organizers could not have predicted and there (as usual with these events) were not enough places to sit down. Apart from that it was a sterling effort by Nancy and her team. I

Gather the idea was that the stall holders paid a fee which was the LCN and RBL 'profit' and that the smallholders were then free to either promote their charities or organisations or make a profit, which seems to me perfectly fair. I didn't think anything was too expensive -on the contrary, prices were very reasonable. Too many cheap Charlie's expect something for nothing in this town.

[Ulysses G.]

Too many cheap Charlie's expect something for nothing in this town.

[TheVicar]

Too many cheap Charlie's expect something for nothing in this town.

Books between 5 and 20 baht! That makes you an extortionist, UG.

[Ulysses G.]

Books between 5 and 20 baht! That makes you an extortionist, UG.

Actually, it makes me someone who has to pay for books and then pay rent, electricity and wages on top of that. Maybe OldeBellPedr has a point.

Too many cheap Charlie's expect something for nothing in this town.

Edited November 28, 2012 by Ulysses G.

[butterisbetter]

I'm curious about more specific feedback about the parking situation. Was there not enough parking? Was it confusing about where to park? This seems like something we can work on for the future.

The parking situation was far better than it used to be at the Citylife venue. This is not Citylife's fault. It's just that they have very limited parking space and much less space in general. It probably would have been useful to have one steward out front at the entrance explaining to vendors where they should go.

[NancyL]

Thanks everyone, for the thoughtful comments concerning location, parking, signage, confusion about the location of the food court, lack of children's activities, etc. It really was helpful. Also, several people sent PMs which were also helpful.

[Mapguy]

Why do some people ask so much of a voluntary effort? The Vicar and Beetlejuice strike me as entirely too harsh. And it wasn't event for children, lainlain100. Might be in the future, but that's a whole different concept with its own set of things to work out! Although there is not a flood of favorable comments, per se, it seems like the organizers should consider the first time round a success.

One thought, however. Hard to find a Thai other than someone who was either a partner of a farang or working to sell something.

Sorry I was under the impression it was a Christmas Fair, and Christmas is for the children!

Information or publicity gap, I suppose. Otherwise, I hope you still believe in Father Christmas

[Mapguy]

Will there be a financial report from these organisations ?

[DGS1244]

Hi Khun Nancy

Agree like being at the Ex-pats club somewhat, I enjoyed most although some areas where a little chaotic and congested, a bit more organisation would not have gone amiss. Also on a number of stalls the stall holders seemed more interested in having a meeting amongst themselves than actually dealing with customers. In saying that I will still visit again.

[Sao Jiang Mai]

Last year I attended a similar event at your office, or at least the green space in front of it. It had a wonderful festive feeling, and an excellent diversity of participants and guests!! Re-create that and you will have all the answers. This one was close, but as you know, not quite there.

I think you mean our Citylife Garden Fair. We didn't do one this year and many of the volunteers who help us each year did this event on their own, Citylife was not involved.However, I went down and thought that it was lovely. For the first event, it went very smoothly. If you recall, Citylife's first garden fairs were fairly small, I am sure that the organisers will improve it year on year. It is a community endeavour so the more support it receives the better it will be!

[Sao Jiang Mai]

And I agree, parking was waaaay better than it used to be at Citylife. And as to having more Thai people, well I don't see anything wrong with events aimed more at expats than Thais. 99% of events in Chiang Mai are aimed at Thais, sometimes expats want something different, nothing wrong with that! I thought they did a really good first job. But yes, more small outlets like Freedom House would be good. However, you try getting all these stalls to come to your event, it is like pulling teeth - I know, I have done it! And even as a media organisation with many clients, we struggled to get people to join in. I have no vested interest with this group, but thought they did a good job. More PR definitely would have been good. I think that was the main weakness. Oh, and as to the date, they set their date months and months ago, it is the high season afterall, there are happennings every weekend now, so whenever they pick it it is going to coincide with something. So I think it was lack of PR rather than bad timing that saw so few faces there. My tuppence.

[NancyL]

Will there be a financial report from these organisations ?

Yes, definitely for the memberships of the organizing groups. Beyond that, I don't know yet. It is the intent of LCN to be transparent about their finances, but since we've never done anything like this before I don't know yet how we're going to handle the reporting.