Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A cry for help

I'm concerned that I'm not going to have enough arbiters for the Derby Memory Championship. I'm also concerned that I'm not going to have enough competitors, but that's a minor problem. The arbiter thing, on the other hand, could be serious. I need to find a couple of helpful people who are willing to spend a weekend handing out, collecting in and marking memorisation and recall papers, generally keeping an eye on competitors in case anyone's cheating, and being quiet for long periods of time. In return, these happy helpers get free accommodation on the floor of my living room, free meals and drinks, my undying gratitude and a favour that can be called in at any time in the future.

If I don't manage to recruit any little helpers, I might have to drop out of the competition myself in order to run it, which would annoy me enormously, because one of my main reasons for organising the championship in the first place is to give me a practice event for the German and World Championships later in the year. So, anyone who's reading this who thinks memory-competition-assistant-arbiter could be a great career move, please get in touch. Undying gratitude, people! You can't put a price on that!

Although if you wanted to put a price on it and demand a tenner or so for your services, I could do that too.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Ben. I will be an arbiter. I offered Phil Chambers ages ago. This would be ideal as, I have recently lost my job then my car broke and, now the car is fixed I will get a job. Keep the tenner though. It's something I would like to do anyway. It could be only with the free accomodation on your floor though coz, i'm a bit behind on the bills but, you don't really know me which would obviously be a concern. Let me know what you think.
Dai Griffiths
ps. I will try my best to get to the CMC.

Anonymous said...

Hi Ben. I'm busy on the 24th but could be around on the 25th if you're stuck that day. i'd be really keen to meet you as i'm a comedian and currently writing a show about memory which i'm hoping will be informative as well as fun. watched the tv show you were on on channel 5 and various clips of you on youtube. i could also be avail to come up for the cambridge memory champs if you need any helpers then ... are you also involved with that one?

how come derby memory champion gets more prize money than cambridge? is it a stiffer competition? i guess so if you're in it...

Rosie Wilby

Zoomy said...

Thanks for the offer, Rosie! Yes, any offers of help at Cambridge will also be gratefully accepted, but it's not quite so urgent there because I'm running the show myself and already have a couple of capable coordinators lined up.

And as for the prize money, Derby has twice as much because it's a two-day competition and Cambridge is only one. Another thing I forgot to mention is that I won't be winning any prize money at Derby even if I do compete, seeing as the competition is my brainchild, so to speak. The £100 top prize is for the best competitor who isn't Ben Pridmore.

And anyone who wants to help out should email me at my yahoo.co.uk address which starts with zoom_zoom_ben. Thanks!