Posted: Monday 23 January 2012
The Morton Fraser Burns Supper – our greatest challenge yet?
By Alison Logan
Ask me or any of my fellow first year trainees what we’ve been up to recently, and you’ll be regaled with tales of lengthy meetings, extensive negotiations and constantly chasing people for information. No, we haven’t been left in charge of a major deal – we’re organising the Morton Fraser Burns Supper, a task which has been a rite of passage for first year trainees at the firm for a number of years.
As my colleagues have already mentioned on this blog, there’s always something going on at Morton Fraser. From Christmas parties to ceilidhs, bake sales to Zumbathons, we’re never short of something to get involved with. But for us first years, nothing quite compares to the mammoth task that is the Burns Supper.
As with most legends, the Burns Supper’s reputation precedes it. In fact, I first heard about it before I had even started at Morton Fraser, when the subject was brought up at an introductory event organised for us by the current second years. It was March, and the experience was clearly still fresh in their minds. It was a great night, they assured us, but a lot of work to organise. In fact, if we wanted things to go smoothly, we should really start planning immediately…
Once we’d started at the firm, the topic of the Burns Supper seemed to come up in conversation surprisingly often, along with numerous hints, tips and, most importantly of all, dire warnings about what not to do. We listened intently, absorbing everything we were told. We knew our time was fast approaching, and we were determined not to fall into any of the same traps. When the time arrived for us to start planning, we set about it eagerly, keen to make a good job of it. We reckoned that, if we kept on top of things, we could have most of it organised before Christmas.
I think it’s fair to say that, despite everything we’d been told, we were still hopelessly naïve.
All of our carefully laid plans started to disintegrate almost immediately. For starters, scheduling meetings to fit around our other commitments was almost impossible – almost every day at least one of us was busy with tribunals, court running, training sessions or some other activity which meant we simply couldn’t make it. We quickly realised that long email chains were going to be our best friends.
And all of that helpful advice that we’d received? Straight out the window. For example, the second years warned us that they’d ordered far too much wine, and so when the time came to decide how much we needed, we thought about it very carefully, calculating out the number of glasses per head and eventually settling on what sounded like a respectable amount. Then, at the last minute, we had a crisis of confidence – what if we’d underestimated? What if there wasn’t enough to go round? We’d go down in history as those stingy first years who short-changed everyone on their drinks, and we couldn’t have that slur against our names!
We ended up ordering six bottles more than the previous year.
And I would tell you all about the terrifying moment when we thought we weren’t going to have any speakers for our event, but I don’t think my nerves have quite recovered yet...
However, slowly but surely, things all started to come together. It’s now four days before the big night, and we finally have all of the key elements in place: guests, a caterer, a piper and our wonderful speakers (and on that subject, regular readers of this blog will no doubt be excited to hear that Bruce Wood will be reprising his magnificent performance of the Toast to the Haggis this year).
Obviously, we’re not quite there yet – there are still four days to go, after all, and who knows what might happen between now and then— but we’re hopeful that we’re right on track to pulling off a successful and highly enjoyable event.
But I think I can speak for all of my fellow first years when I say that what we’re most looking forward to is kicking off our shoes at the end of the evening and starting to prepare our pearls of wisdom to pass on to next year’s organisers when their turn comes…
