How to organise it
Want to get involved in organising next year's Big Lunch?
There are only two things which have to be done to organise a Big Lunch - firstly get permission to close down the road and secondly arrange insurance.
In order to close down the road, the residents of Bellenden Road have to be consulted by means of leafletting the road about two months in advance and then a form needs to be filled in and returned to Southwark Council. A template letter, the application form and further guidance can be found on Southwark Council's web site.
Insurance costs about £70 and has in the past been arranged through Event Insurance Services.
Other than that, it's useful to have tables and chairs as a centrepiece along the road. We usually borrow these from Bellenden Old School and liaise with Rob the caretaker for this.
Weather is critical but there's not much we can do to control it! 2013 was the first year we decided to invest in a marquee and this is now being stored at Sumalee's for next year.
Music is important too - Sly and Reggie are normally the backbone of the tunes during the day and previous performers have included John MacLean and Ras Keith. The South London Samba Band made an impromptu appearance in 2013 and were very popular.
There is no budget per se to organise the event and previous organisers have found different ways to fund the event - from having a whip round to organising a raffle or having a collection on the day. This is how the finances worked out for 2013:
| Income | |
| Meeting in Victoria Inn 23/4 whip round | 65.00 |
| Donation from GJM Property | 100.00 |
| Collection on the day | 176.00 |
| = 314.00 | |
| Expenditure | |
| Insurance | 76.00 |
| Marquee | 100.00 |
| Printing | 60.00 |
| = 236.00 |
This means that we have enough money to cover insurance for the 2014 event!
This year's organisers (Carole and Anne) set up a 'DropBox' to share documents relating to the organisation of the event.
Join the Bellenden Big Lunch Facebook page if you're interested in helping to organise the event next year ... preparations will start again in about April!