Where will we heat the Chicken Curry Pies?

"Nine more sleeps", that's right just nine more sleeps until our first Kiltwalk events of 2012. The 26 mile Hampden to Loch Lomond walk along with The Wee Walk, taking place up at Loch Lomond Shores are nearly upon us and with only nine more sleeps to go, what would a Kiltwalk organizer wish for?

Well to be honest we could probably do with another nine sleeps, on top of the nine to go, that way we might get everything done on time. The t-shirts, registration cards and photographers, the signs, water and irn bru, the banana's, breakfast bars and bin bags, the permits, insurance and wrist bands, the gazebo's, marquees and tables . . . the list, as you can imagine, goes on and on.

But what an organizer really wants, no prays for, is a 'dry day'.

I mean sunshine would be lovely, but as long as it's dry, the organisers and more importantly the walkers will be happy on Kilwalk Day, because you wouldn't believe that if it rains, we get the blame and everyone gets grumpier!!

Today's picture is intended to shed a little insight into what was the final Joint Steering Committee (JSC) meeting before next week's event where we went through the general Kiltwalk business, before going through 'Kiltwalk Day' in meticulous detail turn by turn, mile by mile and pit stop by pit stop.

"But haud oan a minute" I hear you all say, "there's not a single Kilt in sight, that can't be right, can it?"

Well the answer is, yes it is. You see apart from the full time Charity workers from CHAS, Aberlour and CLIC Sargent who attend the JSC meeting, the "Kiltwalk Gang" are just normal people, with day jobs and who coordinate all of this in their spare time, on a voluntary basis. If you look closely, you can probably spot 'which is which' as the Kiltwalk Gang are the boring suited and booted lot, unlike the young cool Charity Gang :-)

So there was a lot to get through, including the fantastic sandwiches, wraps and cakes that had been laid on by the team at Aberlour, who were very kindly hosting the meeting.

We started off with a bit of great news, as it had been a momentous day for everyone connected with The Kiltwalk, we had been TRENDING on Twitter.

So there were hearty rounds of applause and smiles all round until someone said "Great news, fantastic achievement . . . . but eh, could you tell me what that means?" at which point 80% of the room then said "aye, what does that mean"

I'll not bore you with my full explanation, however it's all to do with Twitter Network Activity, which really means "everyone was talking about us" or as I put it, "it's like getting on the 6 o'clock news and newspaper front page" albeit for 5 mins.

So a huge thanks to everyone out there in Social Media land who made that happen for us.

Once the mundane items, mentioned above, had been discussed and bullet points ticked off, we got down to the real serious stuff such as "How many toilets should we have at the first toilet stop at the SECC?" and "How do we stop the Crème Eggs melting if it's sweltering". There was then the "Edward Reid wants to walk it, do we let him?" issue, however perhaps the biggest headache was "Where do we hand out the Chicken Curry Pies and Pakora?"

This is where the chocolate éclairs took a bit of a battering as people looked to increase their sugar and carb intake to solve the important matters of the day and it worked and here's the result.

Now as a Kiltwalk veteran I knew the answer to the 'How many toilets' issue and explained we'd need at least four, rather than last year's two.

You see everyone is nervous and excited at Hampden Park so they're topping up the liquids with cups of tea, banana milk and bottles of water and then two miles into the Kiltwalk, everyone's bladder wakes up and goes "eh, I'm bursting, where's the first toilet stop?". So the first stop is critical and when people just see two, something in the bladder panics and thinks "I'll never be able to wait" (a wee word of advice. The toilets are right next to the Crown Plaza Hotel and if you walk in ever so quietly, they'll let you use them).

The Crème Egg's were next as CHAS have managed to get hold of 5,000 Cadbury Crème Eggs for Kiltwalk Day, well it is Easter Sunday and we also need an Easter Egg hunt don't forget.

So we hummed and hawed with regards to what it the weather was like last year, how would we stop them melting, can we get loads of cool bags? And then Jon came up with the answer and it was simple "we'll just eat them" he said and went on to explain that he'd just hand them out to everyone!!

Everyone on The Wee Walk, everyone on the main walk, everyone at the pit stops, all the helpers and basically anyone standing close by who had a free hand to receive a Crème Egg. It was an ingenious plan really.

The Edward Reid issue was also easy as those of us who have walked before took the decision out of his hands. Edward, who I'm sure you all know and will recognise from the Blipfoto story of 23rd March is an Aberlour Ambassador and has been carrying out a lot of excellent PR work on behalf of Aberlour for The Kiltwalk and he's now totally caught up in the event (we think it's the pink sporran that's the main attraction) and he wants to do everything.

Edward wanted to walk and then do what he does best and that's entertain people, which he planned to do at Loch Lomond Shores once he completed the small matter of a 26 mile Kiltwalk. 26 miles and then do ' a turn?' well we weren't taking the chance as we fear Edward may 'suffer aturn' not do one, so he will be there at Loch Lomond Shores to entertain what we expect to be a significant crowd, assuming the weather holds out.

This left us with the final decision which was the 'hot food' debate, which is always keenly looked forward to by the Kiltwalkers.

When we started two years ago the Territorial Army laid on hot food at the half way stage, which given the miserable conditions, was warmly (excuse the pun) received by the walkers. We tried to do the same last year, however at the last minute caterers let us down and therefore the walkers had "had their chips" as they say, which was a great disappointment to us and even more so to them.

We also like to try and lay on something to fill the stomachs of the walking wounded as they arrive, ravenous, at Loch Lomond Shores so we debated what kind of food we would have and started with the thought of Pasta before realising that pasta, sitting for hours waiting for nearly 800 hungry walkers to arrive would be rather 'stodgy' at best. So we moved on to Hot Dogs, which was settled as a 'done deal'.

Carey then pointed out that Mr Singhs are donating 750 Chicken Curry Pies and portions of Pakora and where were, or more importantly, how were we going to heat pies and pakora at the half way stage?

I have to be honest and say we were stumped. "What about eating them cold someone asked", while another suggested we "hire one of those portable chip vans that we could heat the food in"

And then it happened again. Someone simply said "if we want to offer Hot Food at the end and we need to heat the Pies and Pakora, then why don't we offer that at the end" and everyone just looked at each other and thought "how simple was that then"

I think it's definitely true that the more people you have in a room deciding, the more complicated the answers become, when often, like in this case, the answers simple. I should of course add that I wasn't thinking simple. I was off thinking about generators and cables over a canal, but then I'm a guy and we like the sledgehammer to crack a nut approach

It was a very productive meeting and the above are some light hearted tales, which hopefully didn't bore you and gave you an insight to what was a very vibrant meeting.

There's still a lot of logistical planning to be done this week however the back of it has been broken, well for most of it that is, unless you name is Carey.

Carey will be in his element this week as he's a man who loves a challenge, loves a list, and the more actions on it the better!!

So good luck this week Carey, cause you'll need it and I'm turning my phone off :-)

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