J Mark Dodds: Planning for the party season

What's happening this week? Planning, that's what. And fixing - fixing all the things that broke down in the last year; getting ready for winter again. But then the fixing gets in the way of the planning, and the planning gets behind, then suddenly prioritising becomes the priority.

Let's sit down and draw up a list of all the things we need to do keep the place busy. Work backwards from New Year and figure out what's most urgent now.

New Year we'll be doing what we always do -a massive party for our customers - so don't think about that now. The Christmas dinner menus are ready, almost, not sure about the vegetarian option, and need to be laid out, printed and turned into an email flyer.

Basically we're behind on Christmas - the menus should be out there already but, actually, that feels really naff and odd since only just October but, as I noticed on Oxford Street today, the Christmas decorations are up there already; there was some personal relief about the idea of getting all Seasonal even before the leaves have fallen, but whatever, it still doesn't feel good.

Bonfire Night. Halloween. Guy Fawkes is always competition - can't do a huge bonfire and fireworks in a pub.

Trick or Treat night for Halloween; a band; a film; a couple of DJ's; fancy dress; spray cobwebs; leaves on the floor; tattoos and fangs; all round apple-bobbing and toffee apples in goody bags.

Fancy dress and we've got fifty Americans coming in amazing Louis IV costumes. It will be a great evening. We've got to get the flyers out now. What else? New menus, cocktails, wines and food. Update website.

The quiz starts again this week after its summer holiday. Posters and emails need to be sent about that. Need another quiz compere since our Bryan has had a baby and has too much on...

Acoustic night trialled last Saturday, went well and shows lots of promise, it's important to spread the word.

Amazingly, we got a Wii from our S&NPE BDM, so we can do a Wii night. Tried out Rock Band; weird, if you ask me, but some customers are interested in the notion of coming in and doing odd things with white sticks in public while dancing around in front of a big screen. Freaks me out but hey - if it works - it works. Is there a 'string quartet' game I wonder?

The maintenance list, as always, is horribly long with equally urgent tasks and where to start is always a challenge.

Money is the issue and spending has to be prioritised based solely on what is most urgent to maintaining customer comfort. This means any non-essential things only ever get when they get so bad they'll affect trade.

So have I figured out what's most urgent to do now? Yes. Get more sleep and sort it out tomorrow - when, no doubt the Robot Coupe will blow up unexpectedly or a display fridge will die for no reason - meaning I've got to drop everything and get them sorted out of my non-existent budget. Errr, did I do that mail out?

And I still haven't called Sam Brookes back about their local brew...