News
The Fajita Dream
In the late nineties Tor RFC were in dire straits, with the bank breathing down there neck a miracle was needed. Along came Byron Otton not quite the Messiah but close enough. Byron had a long association trading at the Glastonbury Festival over the years and had many contacts in the food industry. He saw a gap in the market and that was Mexican style food, the dream was born. With nothing to lose The Tor committee were soon behind him beg, stealing and borrowing to collect the items needed to equip the van. Byron and his disciples got to work converting an old building site caravan into the serving cart we still use today.
Tor’s next piece of luck was there position when they arrived to trade at their first festival and where we are still trading today plot A1/02 or as some might say more conveniently right next to The Cider Bus. The first few years were a learning curve where players (men and women) old and new, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, mates etc threw their selves into this fund raiser. Those early days we were very dependent on Byron’s extensive knowledge of the catering trade. Before we left to trade at that first festival Byron made sure that all the staff were fully trained to his high expectations by running cooking and veg prepping sessions in the months leading up to our first festival to insure that we conducted ourselves in a professional manner once there.
Byron took us well into the new millennium before deciding to take a back seat although he still helps in preparation before the festival each year. The leader’s sombrero was taken on by Tim Kelly who with military planning was soon pushing the dream to new highs. Tim continued to make improvements and it is down to him and his fine tuning that we operate in a professional manner today. It was Tim’s belief that we offered quality, quantity and value for money in our food. Tim stood down after 2010 and will be a hard act to follow. All staff working on the food stall are volunteers and work extremely hard over the festival period. But as you will see by some of the photos still find time to relax and play. After all we are a rugby club!!!! It’s also worth noting that whilst we consider that we run our stall in a professional manner nobody works in the catering industry however a few of us have now taken food handling courses.
Over the years due to the commitment of everybody helping Tor RFC either on the food stand or by carrying out the security shifts over the festival period. We have been able to tarmac our car park, buy a tractor and mower, install a new shower system and refurbish the clubhouse. Future projects we would like to carry out in the coming years are the installation of a disabled lift and facilities and to extend the clubhouse balcony.
There are many people over the years that have helped make this happen, far too many to name on this page and sometimes forgotten. So to you all Tor RFC thanks you.
Finally we would like to thank anybody who has purchased our produce in the past because without you our dream would not have happened!!! And hopefully see you all again this year.
Richard Hopkins March 2011