Hi all,

Just needed to post to release my frustration.

In a few weeks there is a local community fete/event close to where I live. There will be various stalls and it's all to raise money for the community, however they were after ideas.

I proposed a pie the man/women stall. The idea was people would buy shaving cream pies, which they then would splat the man/women, looking at a local MP or someone high up to pie. Simple

For each pie bought, a tin of food/packet of biscuits etc would be donated to the local community foodbank.

However. I have had an email refusing the idea on health and safety grounds. Gutted.

Always red tape involved somewhere.

Anyway I thought it was a nice idea, back to hook a duck then.

Weirdly, I suspect this is probably just tge people involved being scared of health and safety sue to lies spread by the press, a few years ago, a headteacher was on the front of the daily mail, saying that H and S meant pupils had to wear goggles and safety equipment to play conkers, you still hear people mentioning it now, however, he later admitted it was made up, and he thought it was the sort of thing that may happen.

A few years later there was a government enquiry into why no schools were offering field trips due to health and safety, and it p, so I know roved that it wasn't H and S, it was the fear of H and S, no actual laws were stopping them.

They have a pie the teacher at my local college every year, no goggles involved, so I know that it is possible. I suspect if you ask them which laws forbid it, they wouldn't be able to tell you.
Although they would just think you're weird

As wammers we shouldn't be organising pie/gunge events at community fetes though.

There are no 'laws' against any of these activities (aside common assault, criminal damage/and others implied by consent ) that haven't always been in place.

What is happening is this: organisers of events are very reasonably afraid of being sued by participants or even bystanders on the grounds of personal injury and damage to property, the likelihood of which has become extremely high as, in the last few decades, litigation and legal action of this kind has increased exponentially and not only become highly profitable, but extremely easy for plaintiffs to instigate. Definitions of 'harm' and 'damage' being stretched beyond all reason.

The knock on effect is that public liability insurance to protect individuals and organisations from potentially ruinous lawsuits has become prohibitively expensive - or so full of clauses and exclusions the activity is rendered pointless by necessity of stringent measures (including ever more complex H&S provisions and paperwork).

H&S is a symptom of the above - and part of attempts to organise preemptive measures against it - not the cause.

So it's no wonder ever fewer individuals and orgs are willing to assume responsibility for more boisterous events. While actual instances of such litigation might be less than the fear of it in reality - it's far easier not to bother.

If you take a look at some very traditional rites and festivals (like the fire barrels etc. Lewes, in East Sussex) that have managed to survive this scourge, they only have done because there is sufficient strength of feeling about it that an over-arching bond of trust exists amongst those involved. Even so, these are ever diminishing.

A community might unite and stick their necks out for a thousand year old tradition but are far less likely for a one off pie event.

Agree with Trouso's comments.

The sad reality is that they are worried someone might push that pie "a little too hard" and break the nose of the important person acting as the stooge.

What's interesting is that I've hosted several public gungings (not pieings), and I gave the opportunity for key donors to be the one to pour the gunge, but was always told "no, you do it". In hindsight I see that there were two reasons for this; firstly, the donor avoided getting any gunge on them, and second, there was no risk of any malice toward the gungee.

Perhaps the idea would have worked better if you'd suggested a messy forfeit of some description but simply on public dispay (i.e. a gunge tank (or buckets of gunge as I used)), as there's much less public interaction - they just get to view.

I raised thousands for charity by having a system where you had several willing potential gungees that were from various high up positions in a large company. People paid a pound per vote to choose who they wanted to be gunged, and there were no limits on how many votes any person could place (so if they wanted to place 500 votes on one person, they'd probably do well to get their gunging, but so would the charity). It worked excellently, and much money was raised. I ran the same event for 4 years on the trot, and every time it raised four figures. In subsequent years we upped the stakes to the top two people getting gunged, then the top three, always with improved success.

(On a side note, in response to piecub's comment and the above, WAM I think is entirely contextual. While I have a messy fetish, that's for sure, I've realised over the years that it has to be in the right niche. For WAM to turn me on, it must be in the context of a sexual activity. The person getting messy must be fully willing to entertain it as a sexual act, or at the very least see it as comical and fun. To this end, when it comes to charity gungings, whilst there is still a strong desire to have fun, perhaps get messy, and even see a girl get gunged, it doesn't really directly turn me on as it's out of context - it becomes more of just a satisfaction thing.
I can't really explain it. But in essence, I was able to half switch off my fetish for the charity event - it was a rare circumstance where I experienced it like everyone else - great fun getting covered in slime, but did nothing for me from a sexual perspective.
Of course I also share their sentiments to a degree - if you can't distance yourself from it, probably best to avoid doing it at all.)

Thanks for everyone's comments.

On reflection I agree that this was a misjudgement on my part, and whole heartily agree with PieCub and GungeMeGood.

I will still attend the fete and make my donations.

Back in the day I also raised a hell of a lot of money for charity with messy events. At that time I wasn't aware that WAM was a fetish (I hadn't found Splosh! magazine and the internet wasn't a thing... Old git, you see!) And, events like this were always just fun and never anything more. I can, hand on heart say I never got turned on at an event.

However, my insurer wouldn't cover messy events, just in case, even though we had never had an issue and, as I was discovering there was something more to this messy thing, I was actually quite happy to step back from these things.

A real shame, the events were fun and raised lots of cash, but, times change...