Adelaide Brighton Cement, one of the Club's major sponsors, requested us to run a BBQ for their annual maintenance Shutdown contractors and employees who have been working for the last 4 weeks.
Work has just about finished and the plant is preparing to heat up to recommence operations in about another week.
So, the BBQ was not our normal snags'n'onions. They wanted something a little more up market. Ros did the negotiating and many chicken shasliks, beef kebabs, salads and drinks were purchased from Drakes in Semaphore. The total purchase cost, funded by ABC, was just over $2,000!
The BBQ was split into two parts: Dayshift for lunch, and Nightshift for evening meal. We were expecting ~300 & ~100 respectively.
Lunch (7 members)
Sunday am pickup of supplies, then to pick up the BBQ trailer from Samoa Reserve Shed.
We were sited near the Birkenhead BBQ area and started cooking about 11:30.
The wind was horrible, coming straight across the car park. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to optimise the location of the trailer, so the wind played havoc with our burners. The two ABC in-situ BBQs (run by Brian J and Bob), were really not any better. We tried valiantly to cook up supplies, however the wind and the sudden influx of about 100 people at once made it difficult.
Brian W and Bill toiled away on the trailer trying to get some heat into the plate.
Yvonne and Ros managed the hungry hordes.
Nevertheless, we did feed ~250. They were all very appreciative of the effort, and ABC was thanked by the contractors at the afternoon shutdown meeting.
Dinner (6 members)
With the benefit of hindsight, and a little more time, we relocated the trailer and put a car in front to help block the wind (it wasn't any lighter).
The cunning plan was to cook on the trailer, then store in the ABC BBQs to keep warm.
The size of the beef kebabs prevented us from being able to cook quickly. So we removed the skewers, cut the beef into smaller chunks to make them easier to cook.
This worked a lot better, and we also had fewer diners. We anticipate that we had about 60-80 come to the BBQ, plus another 40 or so to whom we sent supplies at the other end of the Plant who were unable to join us.
Pack up was relatively easy, we did have a few salads left over. Backup sausages and left over bread went to the Bunnings BBQ.
The trailer was back at its home by 9:30.
Well done to all, with thanks to:
Bob, Brian J, Brian W, Bill, Yvonne, Jean, Alison, Jamie, Ros and Andrew
Ros will be liaising with ABC for event close-out, with discussions on a potential donation for our efforts.
She will also be investigating if a Plant Tour for Club Members is a possibility.
Part of working on a private plant was the need to adhere to ABC's clothing standards.
We had to find a long sleeved shirt for one of our members, and keep him hidden. However we did manage to take a snap of our well-dressed cookers!
