Many thanks to the Emma Bolton and Sarah McCall, owners of The Lavender Tree, and John Berry, manager of the Cricket Club for organising a fantastic village fete at the Cricket Club last week. I am sure that those of you who went along will agree it was great fun and there was a brilliant atmosphere.
Speaking with Emma today she informed me that they raised £1000 for Friends of the Park and they believe about 1500 people attended. Emma said "we'll definately do something again next year and aim to make it an annual event". It will be held at the same time next year as they plan to follow on from the Cricket Club Ball and use the marquee again.
Emma explained that the "feedback has been fantastic, all the stall holders were thrilled and we already have some new ideas for next year's summer fete".
Many thanks to photographer Amy Laughton who spent the afternoon taking literally hundreds of pictures, including those above which accompanying this article. Click 'next photo' to scroll through or you can play the slideshow.
Comments
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The 'Friends' has now been 'officially' formed (we took the plunge and adopted our constitution just last week) and I think I can speak for us all when I say how extremely touched we were that Emma, Sarah, John and their group felt that they had sufficient confidence in us and our idea of a cafe in the park to make such a donation. We appreciate that the Fete, being very much a community event, necessitated funds raised being reinvested in the community but didn't anticipate that we would be the chosen recipients of this.
This first donation, combined with our ability to now fund raise in our own right, has given us the confidence to go forward and apply for Planning Permission on the cafe and hopefully this will be sanctioned in the near future.
In the knowledge that trying to make things happen for the benefit of the community is extremely difficult (and at times astoundingly demoralising!), we are genuinely touched and hearted that the efforts of Emma, Sarah, John and everyone concerned have been relayed to 'The Friends'.
Thank you all once again, we will not let you down and we will make it happen!