Monday - Friday, August 5-9, getting youth center ready for concert

Everyone finally got paid this week, so it looks like we will have the place decorated after all. The person doing the draping asked if she could get in on Thursday to decorate, because Friday is a holiday. We got that okayed and finished up the details so we would be ready to go. We heard from Joburg that the crew was performing magnificently and that their firesides were very inspirational. We had requested that Lotus FM get same providers of food at last wheelchair event to donate again at this one and Lisa said KFC would be donating again. The area office offered to do the programs for our concert, so I asked them if they could put in KFC as a donor. They said they would. Then Thursday morning, Lisa called to say that Nandos was going to donate food, instead of KFC. I then called the area office and luckily they were able to change the program. Whew!

On Thursday, we went over to the youth centre about nine to meet the person  bringing the  wheelchairs, but they had already delivered 1/3 of the chairs and they were in a secure area, so we left after we saw that all was well. Vesta Creations wasn't there yet. That afternoon, we got a call from Vesta Creations that they were having a problem draping the boxing ring, because the director was going to use the ring during their meeting on Friday. She also did not know where the 150 chairs were that she was supposed to cover above and beyond the 400 we rented.  Elder Kyle headed over there to sort it out and when he got there they had already sorted it out and all was fine. That evening; however, they called again, because the draping was too see-through and they wanted to know if they could go lower and double up so you could not see through it. I said to go ahead and do it, hoping it would be all right. At this point, we were just hoping that we would be able to get through the weekend and that the event the youth centre was putting on Friday afternoon would not ruin all our decorations.

I remember thinking that it would have been nice to have gotten the place painted or at least pressure washed, but Chatsworth was coming Saturday morning to do all they could to get it cleaned, mainly bathrooms and we were thankful for that. We drove over to check on the progress on Friday afternoon. The other event was supposed to be over at 2PM, but when we arrived a little after that, the parking lot was full and most people were still around. We waited awhile and saw that on Saturday we would have to arrange the chairs that were mixed up, but not too much work involved. The main problem was that there was no dressing room on stage, as requested. I knew that with eight performers, we would need a holding area when they were not performing, but she had forgotten to put one in. We called and told her we needed that dressing room and she said her husband would come the next morning and put it in and also bring the red carpet runners. Wc could only hope that all would be well...countdown to concert!