On Thursday 15^th February 2001 we held our annual dinner at the Crowne Plaza Midland Hotel in Manchester. The event was attended by approximately four hundred people and a good time was had by all. The guests were mainly students but also included a few invited guests including representatives from other student societies around the country.

The evening kicked off with a delicious four course meal before the after dinner speeches commenced. The speeches were started off by our chairman Rachel Edwards before our president and 'leader' Graham Gaddes rose to make his speech. His speech was longly anticipated and he even had the front to pop fun at Billy Bean, the 'proper' after dinner speaker before finishing off with one of the worst jokes heard that evening. One noticeable event was that representatives from three tables seemed to miraculously disappear after the meal and before the speeches were started. (You know who you are, but for those of you who don't they were; Table 19 - HMI Group, Table 21 - Grant Thornton and Table 23 - RSM Robson Rhodes.)

Once Graham had finished his speech the microphone was passed over to Billy Bean who entertained us in his own unique way. When the speeches were over and the wine drunk we all retired to the bar before the first brave souls ventured onto the dance floor, some preferring tables until they collapsed under the strain!

The evening continued pretty much in the same vain from now on with vast amounts of alcohol being consumed and strange forms of dancing being exhibited on the dance floor. As time wore on into the early hours of Friday morning numbers depleted as people left wondering how they were going to get up for work the next morning or what there excuses would be for not making it in until lunchtime. But despite the approaching dawn a die hard gang of trainee alcoholics could still be found in the residents bar at 3 a.m. consisting, not surprisingly, of many of the committee members.

After all the evenings events I think we can say the evening was a success with everyone who was still capable of coherent speech when they left saying what a good time was had by all.

Just to round off this write up if anyone can come up with a caption for the picture of our administrator Ray Gash (below) let us know because I could not think of a suitable one that would not get me into a lot of trouble with his wife!