Somerville-Jesus Apology letter: Too little, too late

The apology letter, much like the ball itself, was a disappointment from start to finish.

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 “Honest, open, and receptive” is all the ‘response letter’ to the Somerville-Jesus ball was not.

Let’s start with the single food stall, since they did, and since this was a fourteen inch cock-up (and not in a good way).

Where was the common sense? One stand for a thousand guests. A thousand guests to eight staff members. Eight members of staff serving 125 people each. Since we had to wait for food to arrive, people would naturally flock to the ‘gastronomy’ stand.Whilst the highlight of my night was being jostled against many besuited blues hunks, how was it ever going to be possible for each server to serve 125 meals in an instant? A night of indulgence? More like a night of starvation and 3rd degree burns.

This hog got more
lettuce than I did.

In reference to the statement that “our catering company either forgot, or simply neglected to take these gluten free meals from the kitchen and over to the service area” I can completely understand this mind-set. Since the committee neglected to feed the masses, why bother with the minutiae?

Let’s talk vegetarianism. So, a third of guests responded as vegetarian according to the open letter. Did it not cross the minds of the committee that meat eaters might want a vegetarian option? I, for one, am not a fan of pig on a stick. Halloumi kebab is right up my street. Again … common sense anybody?

Moving onto what the ‘Response Letter’ referred to as an “ambitious project” – who’d have guessed that this was a reference to the maze? Pieces of hardboard painted black. Several masked felons, otherwise known as St. Anne’s students with no training. And not a lot else. They were confused by the layout of our hall. I was confused by what was actually on offer as entertainment.

Even the maze monsters were unimpressed.

And where’s the breakdown of the costs? Isn’t it interesting that the Treasurer is, I quote, “the only member of the committee in possession of the accounts of the ball” yet is not clearly stated as a signatory of this letter, despite the fact there have been accusations of embezzlement. He is the only man who can tell us …so where is he?

The ‘Response Letter’ to the ‘Somerville-Jesus Ball 2013: An Open Letter to the Committee’ is greatly lacking. Shifting the blame onto others, denial without proof and avoiding responding to what has actually been said offers no “fair and courteous” response to these people, who, like me, spent £110 on a night, which was billed as ‘decadence, debauchery and indulgence’, yet transpired to be simply meager.