Thank you so much for booking on to one of my Original Murder Weekends. I am delighted that you will be joining the many thousands of lovely people in our marvellous ‘Murder Weekend Family’.
If this is your first time, we really hope that you thoroughly enjoy your experience and that we live up to your expectations. If you’ve been before, thank you so much for returning, welcome back and thank you for spreading the word!
Each original murder weekend plot is based around a fictitious theme which is the vehicle to explain why a random group of friendly strangers would all meet up together in a hotel for the weekend. We hope that you, our very welcome guests, will enjoy playing along with the main characters in our plot. I always try to create a fun theme where we can all stretch our imagination and become people that we’re not, both actors and guests – and I hope that I’ve come up with a theme where we can all get involved.
I was watching a programme about the Olympics and remembered so well the glorious summer of 2012 when our whole country was uplifted when they were held in GB. I wrote a summer plot called The Five Ringers Club which was based around Medal winners from previous Olympics and it was so much fun that I thought to celebrate the Paris Olympics, 12 years later, I will revisit the theme, a completely new plot, but a lovely fun theme to base the whole weekend upon.
My 153rd plot is called THE CAF CLUB – named for the Olympics motto ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ meaning ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger’! We would love you to arrive with a back story that you won a Bronze, Silver or Gold Medal and were the toast of your town/city/country – whenever that was. It could have been the Olympics or Paralympics, you could have been a dead cert or come from behind when the dead certs tripped each other up by mistake. You could have watched in disbelief as your opponent on the pole vault snapped their pole, giving you the lead. You could have been like Eddie the Eagle at the winter Olympics, who was useless but won the world’s heart and received admiration and fame, despite not winning a medal and be a much-loved member of CAF, despite being CAF-less!!
Winning a medal could have sparked you on to bigger and brighter things; becoming a campaigning politician, working with royalty, a professional on Dancing on Ice, a pundit on ITV. You choose your career after your magnificent win.
The gathering at the hotel is to celebrate not only the up and coming Olympics but also a celebration of the Club’s formation 20 years ago, their official meeting is every four years, although many athletes have local meetings more regularly.
On Murder Weekends we always have a colour theme on Friday night, and I think there’s no other colour for us than white, the colour of the Olympic flag and also a bright cheery summer colour! You could always jazz it up with the colour of the medal you won!! So anything in your wardrobe that is white, but if you’re feeling up for a bit of fun, I think a lot of our guests, knowing them so well, would probably love nothing more than arriving in their cricket whites, their white silk pyjamas or a full snowman outfit. No, really, we’d love to see you, however you’d like to dress and most importantly, feel comfortable in. There will be a bottle of wine for our favourite.
On Saturday we always have a fancy dress themed party and more recently introduced our ‘Alphabet parties’, they have always been so varied and fun and so for this plot we are going for “Things beginning with O” for Olympics.
We have been amazed by the ingenuity of our guests and I’m sure this particular letter will be no different. It could be a film, a TV show, a food, a person, a phrase, there are thousands to choose from, but if fancy dress isn’t your thing, please don’t worry, just sticking something on a jumper would work.
You could wear a white T shirt with an image of an olive on and handing fellow guests small twigs and come as an ‘Olive branch’. Or go the whole hog and come dressed as Olive out of ‘Popeye’ or ‘On the Buses’! How about dressing in threadbare clothes and look all grubby with a bowl of gruel – ‘Oliver’. You could come in a breaking Bad prison outfit and come as Offender.
Often the simplest ideas are the most subtle and ingenious but some of our talented guests love spending weeks making their outfits, which they say extends the enjoyment of their weekends. You only have to look at the photo albums on our Facebook pages (Joy Swift’s Original Murder Weekends and Joy Swift’s Original Murder Weekends Discussion Group) and you will see some of the most amazing, handmade outfits imaginable! Our guests are so much fun and talented, some of their outfits are quite spectacular and breathtaking, you always come up with the most ingenious ideas and it’s often impossible for us to choose the best.
Please don’t hire anything unless you want to – make, beg, steal or borrow! We’d hate you to spend any money on what is, after all, just a bit of fun which is a great photo opportunity for our guests. If you do get stuck, give Geri a ring at our office and she’ll help you with some ideas. But please remember, as little or as much as you choose, we just want you to have a lovely time and lots of fun.
As usual there will be some fun, themed games, with prizes for the winning table or individuals (but not for Googlers) None of them are too complicated but are just a light-hearted way to get you socializing with your fellow guests. Also it lightens the mood, if we were just seriously sleuthing and discussing murder, it could get quite deep and dark, and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing we like more, than laughing on weekends and I promise you we do a lot of that! One guest was once quoted in a newspaper that we should be prescribed on the NHS, after all laughter has been proven to be the best medicine.
Nothing is compulsory on Murder Weekends, so if you’d rather not wear fancy dress or want to sit out a game, go for a snooze or visit the Incident Room to study the evidence, that’s fine. But remember there is always quite a lot of action and we only have rows, deaths etc when all the guests are assembled. This is usually over mealtimes and sometimes when we’re marking games, so even if you don’t play, do come back, otherwise you may miss something vital that’s related to the plot, like another murder! Timings will be in the timetable in your arrival welcome pack.
We know you’ll have a lot of fun no matter how you decide to play the game, but for those of you who want to solve the crime, I have enclosed some tips on ‘How to Play’. Please read them as they will help. It is also a good idea to bring along a notepad and pen to jot down conversations you overhear or to collate evidence you think is important.
I hope you love the plot and enjoy all the many twists, turns and laughter that I promise there will be! Thank you for being part of our ‘Original Murder Weekend Family’, a nicer family you could never wish to meet!
We very much look forward to meeting you on Friday at the Welcome Reception at 8.00pm, before dinner at 8.30pm. We hope you have a marvellous time and manage to crack the case, which will be solved before the weekend finishes at 12.30 on Sunday.
