Photo a day challenge

18.02.12 - "Drink"

I had a smile to myself when I read the topic for 18.02.12. This happened to be the date for my niece's 18th birthday party and drink would play a part, with the legal age to drink in Australia at 18. Melissa asked for my help to arrange the party, and we settled on a room at the local turf club. It's away from the main entertainment area of town, which I hoped would help to reduce the possibility of gate crashers.

With the amazing help of her 2 6ft+ cousins, 2 uncles and grandfather as security, we kept an eye on what was happening. As is the way with mobile phones, it doesn't take long for word to get around that there is a party on, and this was a real concern to me. There were those that tried to get in, but with a wrist band system of identifying who was invited, this was managed well by Chris & Ben. Those that were turned away were in general OK about it. Although one guy did try 4 times to get in, so I have to give him "A" for effort. There was a bit of banter towards our "security team", but in general the 100 or so who turned up were respectful. I'm sure that setting up the security level early in the evening set the tone, and stopped the phone calls to friends to "just come to a party".

Even though the venue holds the liquor licence, so were responsible for the serving of alcohol, there were those underage who were desperate to drink. The young guys who went into the dark of night to find the esky they had stashed earlier was now empty, were not happy. We found quite a bit of stashed alcohol and dumped it. They seem to forget that we were young once too, and actually have an idea of what was going on.

I have to say that I never went through the binge drinking stage that so many young people seem to be hell bent on now. It seems like drinking beer or wine isn't enough. I'm sure the variety of mixed spirit drinks now is a big part of the problem, and does concern me with regards to the long term effects of addiction.

Melissa & Chris

Chris & Ben "Security"