Night of the Bouncing Pencil (historical perspective Part 2)

We are into the 1990s and the Society's committee is steadily becoming more dynamic. I've even got my wife Helen on board to give us extra firepower (she'll kill me when she reads that). There's money in the bank and we want to spend it! Maer Lake, at Bude, comes on the market and a proposal is made to buy it, in partnership with the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. We can afford it, especially with an appeal for extra funding.

There follows one hell of a committee meeting. One member says it will bankrupt us. He hurls his pencil down on the table and it somersaults across the room. He can keep sharpening it until it's an inch long but it will never write again. Viv Stratton asks whether we are a birding society or a building society. Eventually the chairman puts it to the vote, adding that he will resign if it goes through. The proposal is carried by 14 votes to nil, with one abstention. Vive La Révolution!