Fireman's Chili Contest

I am starting with photo above of the conference room set-up.  Each pre-registered entrant received an aluminum tray, a black serving spoon, a small acrylic sign, which they inserted their information into, and a voting cup.  The guests/judges received a sheet of voting tickets which they slipped into the top of the voting cup.  To the left, under the big monitor where red bowls with chili toppings.  You can see aboave, that I purchased cardboard buildings, a fire engine and a stuffed dalmation for centerpieces. I used my everygreen centerpieces also, along with a grass runner.

I created city scape posters with large fire engines.  The partners wanted the kitchen tables up front, so I used my black tableclothes from previous party, and the centerpieces were small

fire engines (also from a previous party).

Here is my daughter farther down at seating area by the band.  She has booked all of our

office party bands for years.

At the check-in desk, where you got your badge and voting tickets, the top prizes were

displayed.  I thought it appropriate that they be emergency vehicles.  I loved that the soap dishes I got on Amazon worked great as bases.  The winners also go huge cash prizes.

This large dalmation, fire hydrant, and flower cart added to the ambience.

 Here are three of props that went into the two main centerpieces.  We had so many

entrants this year, that we had to use both conference rooms.

We have lots of monitors.  I made different emergency scenes for each one.  Watch for

the kitchen ones over the dessert bar.  It is a parade of fire trucks.

Every year, I make hot dogs in my crockpot and my own chili.  This has been a very

popular thing to do.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, there were fireman testing skills games. Nerfball shoot, dog ring toss, and axe ring toss. Notice how big the dalmation's tossing rings are in the basket on the left.

Okay, so my hubby didn't want anyone tossing axes, so he helped me screw them to a target board, where you tried to toss a ring onto their handles.

                                      

The Cheesecake Factor DELIVERS.  They made my life so much easier.

I always bake a few homemade goodies and pre-package them.  I used to bake everything,

but then I got older and wiser.  These are loaded brownies.

Finally, if you noted the black vinyl tableclothes, I MADE those.  It was an awful lot of work, and I broke my sewing machine pushing that much flannel backed vinyl through it.  It was old, like me, so no sweat.  But now they can be used again and again.  It looked so much nicer

than layering on inexpensive tableclothes.

Last note:  We had more WHITE CHILIS and meatless than ever before.  We ended awarding

each entrant in that category with $50, as the votes were so close, and they were all so delicious.

I wanted this office party to be an "Italian Cruise" themed one.  I created this three window wide cruise ship (each panel was 37" x 72").  These windows are right by the office check-in desk.  Party goers were each issued a games card to record their scores.  I have several stand-alone sign posts to give directions for various things.

                                     Here is an example of the one by check-in.

This opening into the conference room was the "gangplank" leading into the buffet area. I ordered Italian food from a local catering company, and it included waiters and waittresses.

I always have MANY Christmas trees in the office.  The one in this room is not shown in the photo.

I used red and white bows with silver and gold balls to accent my tree. Here by the seating area were four panels of the Almalphi coast I created.  My hubby says these were his all-time favorite ones.  I will post the actual posters below.

                 The ship needs a pool deck, so we used the building's lobby space to do this. If you follow me, you've seen my river rugs many times.  Here they are as a pool.  I placed a shark in the pool and a net.  Each of my beach chairs had a nerf gun and balls to try to shoot at the shark.  Yes, the large nerf balls went through the net.  Notice the umbrella and life guard chair.  We added the life guard's sweatshirt to the back of the chair.

Behind the pool, in the hall running 90 degrees, was a mamma flammingo.  I put 6 small

stuffed baby flamingos in a 12" square painting canvas. I velcroed this to a gym scooter.

With a mop handle and the soft side of velco to save the floor, the object was to push the babies to the mom under three pvc stands like the one above.  You got three chances to

get all six babies to their mom.  If one or two fell off, you could put them back on a start

again.  This was VERY popular.

Across from Flamingo Game was Tante's Farm Game.  A wolf was trying to get at her

border collie and farm goat.  Here was target practice to get at the wolf. The target was

a poster stand I bought on Amazon.  I bought wooden hoops and hook and looped them to the stand.

An easy fishing game.  I bought a child's wooden fishing pole on Etsy.  It has a hook at the end.  I bought half circle metal rings on Amazon and sewed them to about a dozen

stuffed fish.  This was a timed event.  Any simple game timed makes it fun for adults.

I made a kitchen stove out of black foam core from Michael's.  I found metal food warmers at a discount store and used them as burners.  I bought two big pots, heating pads, salt and pepper, even a paper towel holder, and two sets of tongs.  The object was to get the lobsters, and/or veggies into the pots.  The winner won the whole game.

 

 Since it was Italy, I brought out my precious hand crafted with that hangs on a broom (not pictured).  She played La Befana.  She had turned something into frogs.  It was a basic toss, but very popular.  The frogs and targets ended up in an employees' wife's pre-school. The targets were cheap wooden disks I painted green.

Above are enlarged chefs by the tossing game.

There is usually a game just for employees the week before the party. Since the Almalphi Coast grows a LOT of lemons, I had LOTS of lemons in all eight of the office ficus trees.  I also bought a TON of soft white large lemons on AMAZON.  The adult trikes came out of storage. I added baskets.  The employees had to race down the "coast" and back tossing lemons at targets.  Much fun ensued.

Here is the office kitchen area they raced towards.  I placed a small thin tree for them to go around on their trikes. ( Not my first time doing this). You can see more of the coast villages on the back windows.  You can also see Grandma's (Nana's) blown-up poster with the wolf.

She is in her garden.  I enlarged garden items and pests as targets for the disc guns you see in the photo above on the bar.  These shot disks RAPIDLY, so I had a broom and dust pan there to sweep them up for the next contestants.  I head a LOT of laughter at this game.

Here is sample of another one of the signs with directions for the game that was up by the pool.

Here are the babies in their "sled." You can also see the mop handles and my collection of "shooters."

Finally, we also had a dessert competition.  The partners and their wives all gathered in another of the conference rooms (with Christmas Italian decorations) and read and tasted all of the entrees.  Yes, I said read.  Part of the competition was to describe your Italian themed desserts.  You got points for doing so.  You got points for theme.  You got points for presentations.  You got points for taste.  With ten judges, we had a great time with the FABULOUS desserts these talents architects in interior designers presented. The top prize was $500, so they go out in their efforts.

 

 

The theme for the party was a tropical island forest. This is the front of the office and one of the two check-ins. The clients loved this.

In addition to scuba diving, I wanted a lagoon, so I created this one.  I had fun building these panels.  The little fish are part of a centerpiece that was on the bar in the room.

I used teal tableclothes to match the water, and created lighted fish bowl centerpieces.

I ordered rubber fish and plastic coral and blue rocks.  Then I found Amazon also

sells balloon lights.  The are the white circles you see in the bowl above.

They last for days and days.  

Here is the centerpiece.  I used square wood blocks covered in the blue glass rocks.

I glued the poles to each board.  I ordered plush sea life on Amazon.  This was another

popular feature.

Above are the middle of the office check in panels.  This gave the allusion of

forest and tropical flowers leading back to the outdoor patio tent.

I used my two river rugs outside, along with "petaled" green table clothes, that I also

got on Amazon.  I already owned four green umbrellas.

I bought two bamboo panels for behind the buffet table.  I had wired screen that

I tied lush greenery and flowers to for the tropical feel.

I pulled out every tropical silk plant that I have stored in the office's party shed.

The I added tropical basket arrangements I made.

You can see my leaf runner I have used for over ten years.

Here is another look at the second arrangement and flowers on the screen.

For years, I used the rectangular tables on risers for a bar height bar in the garden.

We gave them away.  The round tables you saw above are the new kitchen tables.

I wanted two bar height tables (badly).  So I ordered a small bar height square patio table on Amazon, and had my hubby cut the legs down to fit  30" chairs, which office owns.

Then I found a round tabletop on Amazon that we screwed to the other table.  Add a petaled tablecloth and you see how nice it is.  I made two and had the other by the band.

The dessert bar is always a treat.  This year I hid ice cream sandwiches on the other side of the office in the freezer.  The guests had to fololw a "scuba trail" to find them  They loved this.

I also usually order cheesecakes and bundt cakes.  I found a bakery that just makes cake pops.  This was a BOON!!!!  I had the monitors set to "coral reefs" above the desserts. Each dessert label was a widelife creature you'd find on a reef.

A tropical island will have lots of birds. Every tree in the office garden had at least five stuffed parrots.  The guests thought this was hysterical.

A tropical island also has wild animals.  These were in the check-in area.  They ended up being donated to a local school.

Of course there were flamingos.

 

We had a pre-covid size crowd.  It was a beautiful warm day.  The band was great, the food was great, a desserts were fun, and everything was just as I imagined it to be.  The last photo is of my daughter.  Over the years, she has arranged to hire all of the bands, in addition to being my right hand.  She knows Hobby Lobby inside out.  Please note the pot behind her.  Someone on the staff asked who was watering these pots.  Job well done when people think they are real.