An ambition realised.At last I have sorted out photos from the exhibition,(sorry if there are a lot but I did find it very exciting and got carried away!)
I apologise for this being a long post and understand if anyone wants to skip it and go straight to the photos but thought that first of all I thought I would tell a little about the organising of the event, where it was and how we went about setting it all up.
Unlike a lot of events which take place in cities, this was in a small village in Southern Scotland, Here are a few pictures from the village:
The village school ...
Kirkbean Church ... (where John Paul Jones' father is buried)
The Village Hall ...
Other than these buildings there are about 20 - 25 houses scattered around the village.
To begin, for those who don't know, I am secretary of our local village hall which is in need of renovation work so we have been looking for different ways of fundraising.
Although I live 4 miles away from the hall by the coast, our boys went to the village school and the hall covers our village too.
As I have always wanted to set out all our Playmobil so this seemed like a good way of having an extra fundraising event.
Although Kirkbean is very small, the hall is the focus for the surrounding villages and a few miles away is a large caravan site which caters for about 3000 visitors during the peak of the summer so we though such an event could be an good attraction for the area.
For months I have been making plans on what dioramas we could have and getting extra bits and pieces to go towards what we already had. Playmobil sent us cds, posters and catalogues and macgayver kindly said we could use his colouring sheets for the children.
Various small problems cropped up - one being that the tables in the hall were being used the weekend before so we couldn't start to set up until the Monday before the event opened (12 noon on Saturday 31st July) Also Sandy unfortunately had to have a cataract op during that week which meant me having to leave things to get him to hospital (18 miles away), collect him and take him back for a check up!
However Monday morning arrived and we went to set up the tables.
Problem number 1 ... A lot of the tables were different sizes so it took a long time to sort out those needed for the different displays. The next step was to paint the covers we were going to use, We were using vinyl tablecovering and painting this with a mixture of emulsion paint and in some cases acrylic paint to get the colour we needed. Because of the space needed for this we couldn't do this at home.
I then found that I hadn't enough table covers so Tuesday meant another 34 mile round trip to get more.
Tuesday afternoon came and we could start setting up at last.
I decided to have as a centre diorama, a modern street with garden centre at one end, shops, hospital, school and church, then a park at the other end. I had worked out the layout of all the buildings at home but putting everything in them (especiially the garden centre) took a long time.
This proved to be the case with all of the displays and unfortunately a number of the smaller details I had planned weren't possible due to lack of time and table space. Sandy helped with putting the klickies in the display (some not quite how I had planned!) and Junior did the entire Jungle, Space and Underwater displays. The pirate diorama had to be shelved as we ran out of time and ended up with just three ships, an island and a few pirates! however nobody really seemed to mind.
We had a childrens' play area, colouring corner and a 'lucky dip' for a klicky which helped to cover some of my expenses such as advertising, posters etc.
We finally finished setting up at 8.15am on the Saturday morning, having been in the hall from 3.30pm on Friday afternoon!
I was back at the hall when we opened at noon and must admit that even though I was so tired, the joy of talking to people about Playmobil for three days was wonderful!
I know my collection is not very large compared to what some people have, but for me it was an ambition realised and everyone who visited was impressed and went round with smiles on their faces!
Adults enjoyed it as much if not more than the children and loved looking for the Bunny family, Wally, and 9 different coloured frogs hidden in the jungle.
And in the end we raised nearly £600 for the much needed renovations.
We're already thinking about doing it all again next year...!!!
Anyway here are the pics ...
Unfortunately when we had a lot of visitors I was too busy talking to take photos so most photos are at the end of the day. Consequently any figures that had fallen over or things in the wrong place hadn't been sorted out ready for the next day so please excuse these!
Starting to set up
Things to look out for ...
Under the photo of each display is a link to a slideshow of more detailed photos of that scene. (Hope it works
!)
The Modern Street
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/MODERN%20STREET/?albumview=slideshowThe Park
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/PARK/?albumview=slideshowCircus
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/CIRCUS/?albumview=slideshowSpace
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/SPACE/?albumview=slideshowArctic and Pirates were just small displays showing a little of our collection so I have put them together
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/ARCTIC/?albumview=slideshowVictorian - Again lack of space dictated what I could display so we just made a small market scene and Victorian wedding.
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/VICTORIAN/?albumview=slideshowA Small Medieval Town
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/MEDIEVAL/?albumview=slideshowAirport - Sandy put in the klickies for this - the klickies at the to of the airport are a visiting pop group and the ones on the ground waving their arms in the air are their fans!
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/AIRPORT/?albumview=slideshowWestern Town
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/WESTERN/?albumview=slideshowFairy Tale - Mainly the Ball scene from Cinderella and other magical/fairy tale scenes (again time defeated us!)
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/FAIRY%20TALES/?albumview=slideshowJungle (look out for different coloured frogs)
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/JUNGLE/?albumview=slideshowUnderwater - This was entirely Junior's idea - He turned a table upside down, filled the bottom with sand and fastened thick clear plastic all round the outside. He then fastened fish etc from the top with invisible thread. I was very impressed with the result. (He hid 5 seahorses in the display too.)
http://s909.photobucket.com/albums/ac300/skypurr/kIRKBEAN%20PLAYMOBIL%20EXHIBITION/UNDERWATER/?albumview=slideshowA few scenes from around the hall.
Finally ...
All pcked up ready for home - just have to find somewhere to store it all again.
It was hard work but definitely worth all the effort and I'm looking forward to next year's event - we'll have to get bigger tables though!
(A big plus is that it gives me a good excuse to carry on buying more Playmobil
)
Elaine
