Summer Fair
We pulled it off again! Another successful Summer Fair with £1901.82 raised for much needed reserves.
It never ceases to amaze me how our community pulls together to put on these events. We have a core team at Christ’s Church to coordinate events from a strategic point of view but you might (or might not) be surprised to hear that only one member of that team is under 60! So we are always extremely grateful for willing volunteers to help with the physical stuff and there’s plenty of that!
For the volunteers the final preparations began on Thursday morning when a small team sorted through all the generous donations we’d received. The banners were also hung and we needed a couple of able bodied people with a good head for heights to do that!
On Friday the really physical work started. Nothing is ever straight forward - all our gazebos, cafe equipment and other bits and bobs are stored in the lounge loft. The lounge is our only building besides the church and it’s used for many things. On Saturday mornings there’s a slimming world meeting which meant no access to the room before 10.30am. This meant that everything we needed from the loft had to be taken down and over into church on Friday (after the community cafe closed). Then at 8am on Saturday morning we all met to start moving things out onto the field.
Some of our gazebos are really old and I have to say hats off to the gentlemen erecting the cafe kitchen because there were no instructions and a LOT off poles, but long after I gave up they were still persevering and they did get it together!
We always worry that we don’t have enough people to pull it off but lots of willing volunteers arrived and by 12pm the field was buzzing with activity and paying customers!
The 3 hours went by in a blur, the cafe never stopped with people queuing for tables and there was a constant flow of people browsing the stalls. We’d made an emergancy request for extra soft toys the night before and people arrived with bag fulls!
The Guides did a roaring trade on the wet sponge throwing stall and the hair braiding stand and Teddy on the Toilet were another couple of new stalls bringing a little diversity!
At 3pm it was all hands on deck as we cleared down tables and dismantled gazebos which all had to go back into the lounge loft. By 4.30pm it was all done and I think that’s a record!
Without our community pulling together for these events (and that’s visitors as well as organisers) they wouldn’t be the success that they are and we are extremely grateful to every single person who participated from sending donations to those buying something from a stall.
Our next event is a Chocolate Tasting Evening - watch this space for further details!
