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| | From:  mhajee (Original Message) | Sent: 3/4/2006 5:13 AM |
Jamie again!: At one time, when kids were naughty, they were given lines. Write 300 times, " I will not....." but that did not prove very effective. So Mr. Gerald Warriner decided he would teach kids some vocabulary instead. Now the kids had to write 100 words begining with letter ..... with their meanings. Fortunately, I had a Crossword Dictionary, that gave synonyms for the words. So it was very easy to make lists of words by letter and I had an inventory of these with me. Whenever someone needed to hand in his list of words, they would come to me. If I had "adequte notice" (at least 24 hours), I would charge a modest 1 Shilling, but if it was close to the deadline for handing in the list, my price jumped to Shs. 2/6 (2 and a half shillings). No one caught onto the scheme, and I increased my vocab. in the process. For your information, in the old system of currency, 20 Shillings made 1 Pound. The shilling was further divided into 12 pennies. The bus fare to Bridgewater was Shs. 1 /3 ( 1 shilling 3 pennies). MOST kids had a weekly allownace (pocket money) of Shs. 5. So I made out quite well! Cheers |
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Jamie, Sounds like you where quite the Quantock entrepreneur! I'm a bit confussed about how the word punishment thing worked - why couldn't you just copy the first 100 words out of a standard dictionary? When it came to money making scams, Ben Honeyands and I used to run a few schemes in our day (1985-90). Washing dished was a bit too much like hard work, and was a standard punishment which we tried to avoid like the plaugue ...!! Although a few people did get paid to di it, like Robert Alcock and I think Justy did it too ..? One of our schemes: In the 5th year (1990), Ben Honeyands and I started a covert tuck shop, in secret but direct competition with Matron’s Tuck Shop. Our key marketing policy was a small camping fridge (hidden in Ben’s locker �?run at the school’s expense of course) with which we could cool our cans of pop. In reality we tended to sell the cans faster than we cool them. �?. A second group in our Year �?John Jennings, Gideon Millard and Bobby Alcock also started a tuck shop in competition with us as well. In fact they claimed that Mark Ollis & Co (previous Tuck Shop entrepreneurs) had bequeath their tuck shop operation to them. We merely cited Maggi Thatcher’s policies popular of the day. If our competition hadn’t panicked they might have done alright - but at then end of the second week I went down and bought their entire stock from them at cost-price. They seemed relieved - but they were unaware that we had all but sold our entire stock! In the end on average we took about 200-300 quid a week in stock (not profit), it was quite an operation and must have put quite a dint in Matron’s sales. The tricky bit was to avoid being spotted by Matron and the rest of the Peasters when we had our stock delivered. One time Mr Phil discovered our hoard of goodies during a dorm inspection. Luckily for us at that point most of our stock had been sold, and so we managed to convince Mr Phil that over 100 cans of pop and near 200 chocolate bars were for personal consumption. He also luckily did not spot the fridge either !!!! I suspect quite a punishment may have been given for defrauding Matron of her tuck money!! We employed several sales tactics. We were always honest, but should a Jub turn up with a 5 pound note (or any largish sum) we would encourage them to leave it with us as "credit". We wrote this sum in a little book that we both sighed, and explained to them that they could come any time they liked and get goodies. We pointed out that Matron’s shop only open certain hours whilst we were always open. To our great surprise they often handed their money over. The key thing was this meant their money was committed to us (not Matron or Gideon’s crew down stairs), also since they knew they had credit with us, they tended to spend the fiver in a few days rather that spending more judicially. Another element of this was that quite a few Jubs forgot they gave us their money - not our fault you understand ! In the end we gave up the Tuck Shop venture as our covert supplier (our weak link) got greedy and kept taking a bigger and bigger cut of our profits. Another factor was that Doc Peters was becoming displeased with the number of Jubs coming up to the top corridor and wanted us to move our operation to the 5th form common room which we were not too happy about. I guess it was good whilst it lasted and we did make a fair bit of money at the time. Mike |
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| | | From: mhajee | Sent: 3/4/2006 10:59 PM |
Hi Mike:
Good for you!
Jamie
From: "Mike (Blakey)" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: "Quantock School old Boyz and Girls" <[email protected]>
To: "Quantock School old Boyz and Girls" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Money making scheme
Date: Sat, 4 Mar 2006 14:51:26 -0800
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Money making scheme
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| From: Mike (Blakey) |
Jamie,
Sounds like you where quite the Quantock entrepreneur!
I'm a bit confussed about how the word punishment thing worked - why couldn't you just copy the first 100 words out of a standard dictionary?
When it came to money making scams, Ben Honeyands and I used to run a few schemes in our day (1985-90). Washing dished was a bit too much like hard work, and was a standard punishment which we tried to avoid like the plaugue ...!! Although a few people did get paid to di it, like Robert Alcock and I think Justy did it too .?
One of our schemes:
In the 5th year (1990), Ben Honeyands and I started a covert tuck shop, in secret but direct competition with Matron’s Tuck Shop.
Our key marketing policy was a small camping fridge (hidden in Ben’s locker �?run at the school’s expense of course) with which we could cool our cans of pop. In reality we tended to sell the cans faster than we cool them. �?.
A second group in our Year �?John Jennings, Gideon Millard and Bobby Alcock also started a tuck shop in competition with us as well. In fact they claimed that Mark Ollis & Co (previous Tuck Shop entrepreneurs) had bequeath their tuck shop operation to them. We merely cited Maggi Thatcher’s policies popular of the day.
If our competition hadn’t panicked they might have done alright - but at then end of the second week I went down and bought their entire stock from them at cost-price. They seemed relieved - but they were unaware that we had all but sold our entire stock! In the end on average we took about 200-300 quid a week in stock (not profit), it was quite an operation and must have put quite a dint in Matron’s sales.
The tricky bit was to avoid being spotted by Matron and the rest of the Peasters when we had our stock delivered. One time Mr Phil discovered our hoard of goodies during a dorm inspection. Luckily for us at that point most of our stock had been sold, and so we managed to convince Mr Phil that over 100 cans of pop and near 200 chocolate bars were for personal consumption. He also luckily did not spot the fridge either !!!! I suspect quite a punishment may have been given for defrauding Matron of her tuck money!!
We employed several sales tactics. We were always honest, but should a Jub turn up with a 5 pound note (or any largish sum) we would encourage them to leave it with us as "credit". We wrote this sum in a little book that we both sighed, and explained to them that they could come any time they liked and get goodies.
We pointed out that Matron’s shop only open certain hours whilst we were always open. To our great surprise they often handed their money over. The key thing was this meant their money was committed to us (not Matron or Gideon’s crew down stairs), also since they knew they had credit with us, they tended to spend the fiver in a few days rather that spending more judicially. Another element of this was that quite a few Jubs forgot they gave us their money - not our fault you understand !
In the end we gave up the Tuck Shop venture as our covert supplier (our weak link) got greedy and kept taking a bigger and bigger cut of our profits. Another factor was that Doc Peters was becoming displeased with the number of Jubs coming up to the top corridor and wanted us to move our operation to the 5th form common room which we were not too happy about. I guess it was good whilst it lasted and we did make a fair bit of money at the time.
Mike | |
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When I was at Quantock (85-90) there was a "School Practice" that involved debts between pupils: "At the start of a new term, all debts doubled!!"
This was all but LAW in the 1985-90 period, and the law's legitimacy was beyond question - I was wondered how far back this practice went, and whether it continued after this time?
Ben Honeyands was a quite the master at accumulating large sums of money through this practice �? The unwary pupil often found themselves owing Ben quite a lot of money near the end of term time. This wouldn’t be a problem as such, except these pupils often found Ben surprisingly difficult to find around this crucial end of term debt paying date period. Those that actually did mange to find him near this date, might even be forgiven for thinking Ben had wholly forgotten about the sum owed. Come the new term, with memory restored, Ben was surprisingly adept at finding his debtor to collect the vastly increased sum - quite a good ruse considering most Jubs had full pockets at the start of term ... !! I remember Ben on one occasion trying to convince a very dubious Matron that this was quite a proper practice, when one Jub squealed on him �?the Jub in question seemed to believe that he was suffering from a form of extortion !! Ben tried to explain to Matron (who was having none of it!!) that everyone knew the rules, and that this "Quantock Law" encouraged prompt payment of all debts by the end of each term. Sadly for Ben Matron agreed with the Jub! Ben to this day will tell you he got stiffed on the deal by Matron .... so if you're the Jub that owed Ben the money, it's probably best not to turn up to the reunion as I suspect quite a few terms have clocked over since then ... !!! Mike
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I dont care who the jub was, I will pay the debt myself just to avoid the sight of the squeezed brain gag! Nick |
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Hi Jamie, Good one on the money making scam. I used to do the washing up for 5/- shillings a week. The 5/- shilling pocket money was brought in by Gerry Warriner so every one was supposed to be equal. This never happened in practice as he could not regulate how much a kid started the term with or hid in his dorm. Top money making scam has to go to :- "The Tuck Shop Heist". a certain Xteam member's start to a brilliant carreer. Laurie 1964-1966 |
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Hi Mike, The money lending rule did not apply in my day as we were not allowed to borrow or lend money. Laurie |
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| | | From: mhajee | Sent: 3/6/2006 4:28 PM |
Hi Laurie: No one may be allowed to lend or borrow money, but there was no rule saying you could not EARN it. I earned it by doing stuff no one else wanted to do, e.g. detention / lines / dishes. Cheers Jamie |
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Interesting to hear your tuck shop story Mike - though the lads from Gerry's corridor back in 1986-87 sort of beat you to it.
Myself and Murray Crane, along with Mike Burrows and (I think) Spuddy Williams made our way down to Stowey one Saturday afternoon and cleaned the spar out of its supply of tinned hot dog sausages and finger baps - and after some ketchup and mustard had been procured from the dining room, we were in business.
We warmed up the dogs in our sink in 52 dorm (the small two-man dorm that is now a shower unit), stuck 'em in the rolls and whacked on the ketchup and mustard - and sold them for 50p a go. When the news broke all of the jubs with their freshly-given pocket money were lining up - and we made a very healthy profit indeed. Some people even came back for seconds.
Unfortunately this was the only day of operation - the Head inevitably found out (spooked no doubt by the very thin queue at the tuck shop) and shut us down for 'hygiene reasons' - although what we had been serving was far more hygienic than anything that came from Waltraud's kitchen.
He did let us keep the profits, though. |
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| | | From: Nathan | Sent: 6/6/2006 9:28 PM |
The tuck shop heist was not as profitable as Matron took a loads of my pocket money in return for all the Pot Noodles, Mars bars and Turkish Delights that we made off with. Just as well we did no confess to all of it as I am sure I would have been out of pocket money for the rest of term. All £25 of it......seemed like alot then !!! Nathan. |
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25 quid? And you were operating for weeks? I recall us making at least fifty quid on the one day of the hot dog operation which was shared between us. Kept me in Cheese and Tomato flavour Pot Noodles and Top Deck for a month.
You don't get to see any of these things now, eh? What ever happened to Cheese & Tom Pot Noodle? |
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| | | From: Nathan | Sent: 6/8/2006 6:44 AM |
Yeah, but the difference was that we were not selling the food......just eating it ourselves ! Cheese and Tom pot noodle probably not around as more recent legislation probably bans you from calling it that when it conatins neither cheese or tomato ! Nathan. |
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Never thought about that one Blakey... I wonder how much it would be to pick up a vintage 1987 Cheese & Tomato Pot Noodle?
That said Daz Weeks (who was nicknamed 'Pot noodle') probably still has a couple of dozen stashed away... |
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