Not only could Jim Chinnor teach, but another string to his bow was he was in charge of the school’s “Charities Week”, which was an absolute blast. Charities week was traditionally held on the last week before the Christmas holidays.

This whole week had a semblance of chaos about it, but it had a tried and tested format.

In fact how Jim pulled it off each year I will never know, but he knew how to delegate effectively; each Year 11 form took responsibility for an event during the week. Jim briefed them and let them loose on their projects. Publicising the events, production and sale of show tickets, the rehearsals (where a lot of the weaker acts were weeded out), booking the Hall and such like were jobs that the kids had to do. It was all part of being a Year 11 student. They just did it.

There were student talent shows set up for lower & upper school kids to have a shot at the big time in front of their peers. These shows were held at lunchtimes – tickets were sold by Year 11 students.

Two of the members of Scouting for Girls played at one such school talent show and one lad brought his Dad down to play at another show!

The staff talent show was the highlight of the week – that is another future post I think.

Tickets for the Charity Auction were always particularly sought after. Held for a double period between break and lunch on the Tuesday, the auction was presided over by Reg Ball, a deputy head who was an auctioneer and antiques dealer in his spare time. The auction was always a hot ticket, because possession of one got you out of lessons 3 and 4 on that Tuesday.

The Year 11 form in charge of the auction would write to businesses, sports clubs, even celebrities to ask for donations of goods and services that they could put up for auction. In the days before e-mail and the internet it was amazing to see what the kids gathered in for the event.

Musical chairs competitions were always arranged some time during the week and they were often brutal, almost gladiatorial affairs. Jim Chinnor somehow always managed to organize and control these sessions without a hitch . He would get a whole year group down into the school hall and make all the students to cough up a quid to enter. Then Jim would get about 100 chairs slung out in the middle of the hall, get the 240 or so students from one specific year group to trot around the outside edges of the hall and you can guess what happened when the music stopped! Anyone remember that children’s television programme hosted by Mike Reid “Run Around”, if so you catch my drift.

Risk assessments and health and safety were not de rigueur then needless to say. The students got whittled down to a single winner in a cauldron of noise and pure energy. The din in there could be deafening as the tension built with students cheering on their favourite.
On one occasion in the final play off one student, who clearly could not get to the last chair in time, pulled the seat away from the winner as they tried to sit down. This made Jim mad as hell. He tore into the guilty student whilst the rest of the year group looked on. Half way through his rant he spat out his false teeth and in a blink of an eye caught them in one hand and popped them back in place without pausing from delivering his verbal dressing down. It was one of those jaw-dropping moments where you double take and turn to the person next to you and ask, “Did you just see that?”