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Brean 2004

Fri 19 to Mon 22 March 2004

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Top Accomodation, Fun Fair (on site), Kites, Bogus Quiz. Live Music & Bands,  Excellent DJ's,  Real Ale Trip,  Raw Talent Show, The Sea Side, Happy Hour,
plus lots more…..

Brean 2004 Poster - PDF

MY BREAN 2004
By Fil Bettis

It's a 260 mile drive to Somerset from Leeds, and takes a long time with a detour to Huddersfield to pick up John Smith and with the usual Friday afternnon traffic and along with the end of March road improvements, almost seven hours in total !

Brean really started when we arrived at Tesco's in Burnham on Sea and couldn't get a space in the car park... because the whole shop was full of Plussers buying supplies for the weekend !

Friday as usual is a time for settling into the caravans, in our caravan the rest of my party found that the T.V. mysteriously wouldn't work when it came to Coronation Street time... not very mysterious to me, I had removed the fuse from the plug ! Then it was down to the venue and the bar, I don't miss not having a band on Friday as there are so many people to say hi to and new people to meet that there isn't time to watch a band anyway ! Another Friday tradition for me is drinking far too much and ending up escorting some young lady down on to the beach at 1:30 a.m... why they want to go down to the beach at that time in the morning I ain't too sure, but I'm not complaining either ! I got back to my caravan at about 3:15 a.m. to find that there was a party going on in my absence ! !

Saturday lunchtime/afternoon had the now usual Brean activities. Karaoke is never my cup of tea so I avoided most of that. Tim & Debbies quiz was more of an entertaining lottery than a serious competition.. with some strange questions and answers... and some I was happy that I didn't know (just what research Tim did to find the meaning of the word Blumping / Blumpkin you shudder to think... don't look it up if you are easily offended !) The talent show had some strange (?) acts, both good and not so... just shows how many blokes like dressing up in dresses and fishnets ! (Gary S has better legs than most girls !) Congratulations to Corinna and Richard for their winning act amd my apologies for leaving before they performed again as winners... but the rugby had just started and I wanted to watch the Welsh get beaten... as they did ! (The fuse had mysteriously reappeared and the T.V. was now working !)

Saturday Night I am suprised started so slowly... before 9 p.m. the bar was having happy hour, with about 50% off drinks like Smirnoff Ice, I had a few before Nine O'clock came round ! The band 'Karizma' were good, music you could sing along and dance to, with a nice Queen medley in the middle of their set. Then after the band more records, more dancing and more alcohol was consumed as per usual. One irritation was that there was an event going on in the adjacent bar, so we had to have the volume of the band and disco turned down... and I like my music loud! After the dance the rest of my group ended up in Hounslows caravan (well they'd ended up in ours the night before) getting back to the caravans at about 4 a.m.

On Sunday I had to miss the Real Ale Trip as I had a family commitment to go over to Bath and see my 10 week old niece (who I hadn't previously seen), but I have heard that the event was good even if the trip up to Newent was a little long.

Sunday evening comes around too soon... one problem is that having a 260 mile drive home I need to drink a little less and get a little more sleep than the other nights, but the bar was open and the music was playing. The band 'Riverbrew' I thought were the better of the two bands over the weekend, although they were similar in style and played several of the same songs, but they just had the edge in terms of stage presence - possibly because their singer could interact with the audience more as he was just singing not playing the guitar as well. A 12:30 finish meant an early start to the parties, though there only seemed one place to be - Banbury's caravan... they had earlier in the evening gone around every caravan and personally invited everyone back to their place after the dance for the party... it was a little crowded, and a little noisy though the music was a little quiet - get a bigger stereo guys ! !

That was about it... apart from the Monday morning search for the members of your group that didn't get back to your caravan at all the night before and the eviction of those from other groups that ended up staying in your caravan all night ! And the usual round of goodbyes to all the people you are not going to see until the ANC / WASH / whenever.

A glass must be raised to Gary Jay the DeeJay for putting on a good show all weekend, we'll see him at the ANC - when some glasses will almost certainly be raised ! !

I have to express my thanks and congratulations to Wayne "Four-One" Fenton, it was another succesful weekend that it was a privilege to attend, and whatever you may say about Wayne he does have broad enough shoulders to take the constant "Four-One" jibes in reasonably good heart ! ! (For those who don't understand this, Wayne is a big Manchester United fan and I am a big Manchester City fan, the weekend before Brean was the league derby between the two and City won four one, so when I got there, wearing my Man City shirt, the first thing I said to him was that I wanted to be in caravan 4 1 ... then I went round a few people encouraging them to bring Four One into every conversation with Wayne that they could... you know, "For one thing Wayne blah blah" and "I, for one, think that blah blah" etc... and it just spread until everyone including the DJ was reminding Wayne of that score at every opportunity throughout the weekend)

In short, Brean was a great weekend, it is events like this that bring together groups of friends from all over the country that 18 Plus should be proud of and support.

Fil

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This event is run by the National Activities Officer on behalf of the National Federation of 18 Plus Groups of Great Britain
Church Street Chambers, 8-10 Church Street, Newent, Gloucestershire. GL18 1PP. Tel: 01531 821210  Fax: 01531 821474

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Northern Area
18 Plus Main Page
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of 18 Plus Groups
Make an enquiry
about 18 Plus