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My perfect stag weekend

Over the last couple of years I have been on masses of stag weekends, as respectability finally catches up with many of my friends. I can remember some of these events, but few that I could share on this website!

Recently though I was asked to arrange a suitable send-off for a good friend. I saw this as basically being an excuse to organise my own perfect weekend. I was also curious to see whether my idea of ‘fun’ would be shared by anybody else.

My initial email out to the group met with a hesitant response. The suggestion of “a bit of cycling and camping” coming from somebody who spent years cycling and camping evidently unsettled some! I reassured people that they would be back in their offices by Monday morning…

I personally loved the morning’s mountain biking. (To my relief almost everybody else did as well). It was good to see big grins as people got into the swing of something they probably had not done for many years, if ever. That the grins grew after we had ridden down a slope that all of us considered daunting at the top confirmed much of the gospel I preach in my talks.

After the biking we moved to the pub for well-earned beer, food and, in many cases, an exhausted sunlit snooze on the lawn.
I had arranged for us to camp in a farmer’s field that night. Camping appealed to me as it is cheap (a good Yorkshire mindset), it is fun (or at least I think it is) and also because it was something that most people would not have done for years.
There were no showers, but there was a lovely lake at the side of the field. [Is this still sounding like a fun stag weekend to you?!] There was definitely some reluctance about jumping into a lake in England but good old peer pressure soon saw almost everyone swimming around happily. Again, an experience that seemed unpleasant resulted in people grinning and feeling animated.
The next phase was easier to win people round to: barbecue, beer, guitar and the biggest campfire I have ever seen.
An early morning swim in the lake, followed by bacon butties on the barbecue finished off proceedings, with the whole event coming in at just £70 per person.

I hope that people enjoyed the weekend. Pushing people a little out of their comfort zone, going back to basics and living simply (if only for one night), and jumping into a cold lake hopefully gave everyone a new, fresh experience, a good chance to get to know each other, as well as the chance to build a gigantic fire!

Barbecue

running jump

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Comments

  1. Josh Posted

    Hi Al,

    Love this. It has come that time when respectability has finally caught up with me! I love the sound of this weekend away and is exactly the direction I wanted to go for a stag. I just wondered if the farmer was randomly approached or if you had a connection there already? Seems a hard sell to convince someone to let a stag take over a field?
    Sorry know you are probably quite busy but any advice on this would be most appreciated.

    Keep up the great work.

    Reply
    • Alastair Posted

      Hi Josh, it was a friendly farmer we had a connection with. People still talk about that stag weekend, long after the usual piss-ups & strippers stuff has faded from memory. (Especially the morning swim which many people had never done!)
      Good luck!

      Reply

 
 

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