We normally
hold our "Bar Person of the Year" Awards Party in the bar
of whoever gets the most votes out of the men and women. Sadly, the
Sower is still closed, so we held the party in the Flying Dutchman,
where the next highest scorer works. Being a bit bigger, it meant that
more people could get in and enjoy themselves.
MC for
the evening was me, Andy, editor of The Stun, so I got a couple of beers
down my throat before I started. I’m not a great fan of public
speaking, but it’s only once a year, so what the hell!
Apart
from the trophy for second place as Bar Man of the Year, Floor also
won a bottle of Cointreau from Café De Poort.
Due
to ill health, Lisa couldn’t make it to the party, so Hazel
accepted the trophy for second place on Lisa’s behalf.
I
don’t think there was ever any doubt that Toosh would retain
his title as Bar Man of the Year. Very few of the contenders can
match his experience of working in a busy town centre bar.
There’s
no doubt that Colette earned her title of "Bar Woman of the
Year", it’s just a pity that we can’t see her in
action behind the bar in the Sower at the moment. If she gets a
job in another bar, she should get a signing on bonus, because she
will bring so much custom with her, takings will go up beyond belief.
It’s
a well known fact that if you’ve got a winning team, you don’t
change it, so when we needed trophies, we went back to the ‘House
of Darts’ (Bos & Lommerweg 120). Even at short notice,
they managed to put a nice set of trophies together for us, at a
very reasonable price.
There
it is, the trophy for "Amsterdam Stun Bar person of the Year".
Somehow, Toosh and Colette have got to share it, but until the Sower
re-opens, it’ll be with Toosh.
Every
now and then, we award a special trophy to somebody that does something
exceptional. This year, it was for Alison, who recently ceased to
work behind the bar after an illustrious career in some of our favourite
places. Alison couldn’t make it to the party, so her ex-boss,
Terry, collected the trophy on Alison’s behalf.
With
all of Toosh and Colette’s fans in the bar, Terry and Cathy
had a busy night, but they coped marvelously and still found time
to pose for a picture with our winners.
With
Colette and Floor both in the prizes and no bar to go back to, The
Sower crew were out to party.
It’s
not often that we get to see Colette, Cindy and Karin together at
the same time.
It
was like a Sower reunion party, with Kevin, Terri, Andy and all
the rest.
During
the course of the evening, we took the bag round to draw out some
winners of the voter’s prizes. Hazel pulled Mickey’s form
out of the bag, so he got his prize voucher for a bottle of whisky
straight away, along with a kiss from Hazel.
Rob
from the Swan forgot all about the party, but he dropped into the
Flying Dutchman after he’d been out for dinner with Marina.
Amazingly, the winner of third place in our Bar Man of the Year
competition has never had his picture in The Stun before now.
THE PRIZES
Once
again, we had some great prizes from our sponsors, with bottles, meals
and drugs going to the voters as well as the Top Three Barmen and Barwomen.
On the strange side was one of the prizes that Toosh won: A poem from
Seamus in Finnegan’s Rainbow. It hasn’t been written yet,
but we’ll try to publish it in The Stun in the near future.
