Laughter in the Park

At the end of my Sunday stroll I dropped in on a Social Entrepreneur who runs the cafe in the local park. We had an interesting chat between the times when he was cleaning around and serving his customers.

I was delighted to be offered the cafe as a venue for running future Laughter in the Park sessions. I’m very pleased about this as I have previously attended and enjoyed laughter sessions in Regent’s Park and other similar venues in London that offer a suitable bandstand. Although we have a bandstand in Harlow it is not in suitable condition for use by the general public and has the added (albeit picturesque) disadvantage of having a rill running very close to it. The last time that I enquired about using the bandstand for a voluntary event I was instructed to put together a Health and Safety Risk assessment. Now, that’a pretty much like telling me to look at a bare field and assess its crop potential. I have no background in agronomics or Health And Safety and any assessment that I made would have been pure guesswork rather than based on informed principles. So, the planned Laughter in the Park events didn’t happen.

The events will need to be scheduled for times when the cafe is not in use so that will affect the audience that can attend. I’d like to think that young people could attend but homework and other obligations would probably preclude family events for weekday evenings. I’m going to think some more about what I can offer on weekdays evenings or at weekends and with what sort of regularity.

Copyright 2006, Tony Plant Happystance Project