2011 Flower Festival & Craft Fayre

Redgate Farm Animal Sanctuary were present on Monday and were able to raise much needed funds for their lovely little sanctuary just up the road from our church. Thank you for supporting this very worthwhile charity.

Thank you to everyone who helped in any way with our event; arranging flowers, setting up prior to the event, the refreshments, tombola, raffle, playing the pipe organ (special thanks to Roy for playing at the songs of praise), the security men from Bardon Quarry who guarded the craft marquee overnight, the craft stall holders for attending, and those who helped tidying everything away when it had all finished.

A big thank you to our sponsors and those who donated raffle prizes.

A VERY BIG THANK YOU TO THE STAFF AND MANAGEMENT AT BARDON QUARRY

who not only helped us at the flower festival but support St Peter’s Church throughout the year.

And most of all, thank you to you, our visitors.

God Bless, Rachel

Thank you to everyone who attended our flower festival and craft fayre.

What a fantastic weekend we had.

After months of organising, the week finally arrived of our flower festival and craft fayre.

It was a busy week on the lead up to the festival putting all the bunting around the

church, putting up posters, tidying our already well maintained churchyard, cutting

the grass in the field (and for the lucky ones picking up the farmyard mess out of

the field!!) ready for the delivery and erection of our grand marquee.

Friday was our busiest day, and our wettest - wow did it rain. I think we had the whole year’s rainfall in one day. The church was bustling with people arranging their flower displays and those who were cleaning up after us. The marquee arrived after lunch together with all the tables and chairs so we were then busy organising the marquees ready for our refreshments and craft stall holders. We were definitely ready for our fish n’ chip supper at teatime which has become a firm traditional favourite on the Friday before our flower festival.

8:00am on Saturday morning our first craft stall holders arrived to set up

their stalls and by 10:00am both our church members and the craft stall

holders were ready to greet our visitors who started to arrive shortly after.

The flower displays in church were brilliant - if we had a competition for the best display I

would not be able to choose one. We heard so many compliments and the comments in

our guest book are a joy to read.

Saturday evening we had the pleasure of being entertained by a very talented family: Sally (who plays the electronic organ), Kevin (the drums) and Luke (saxophone). The evening consisted of singing hymns, songs from the musicals, wartime songs and some popular classics. Peter, our layreader, also graced us with some solo singing accompanied by the band - as I was sat at the back I could see there were a few tears from members of the congregation when he sang ‘when I fall in love’. Despite the wonderful efforts of Peter and the band the night was stolen away by a surprise solo (no musical accompaniment) by a regular member of our congregation, nine year old Demie who decided that evening that if Peter could do a solo then so could she - what an absolute gem. She sang a short religious song followed by a pop song - a star in the making - you saw her first at Bardon church!!

Sunday saw the visitors continue to keep coming and I must thank Chris who works

at Bardon Quarry who was providing free quarry tours all weekend. Chris has

worked at the quarry for over 20 years and has lived in the parish so is very

knowledgeable of the old village and the quarry both past, present and future so

always gives an excellent tour and is able to answer any questions. He wouldn’t

allow me to take a photo of him, I did get a sneaky one but I dare not upload it so here is a view of the quarry instead!

I must say thank you to our car park attendants who did a wonderful job (especially in what was a cold and damp weekend) in organising our car parking and keeping all our visitors safe whilst they entered and exit the field to and from the very busy A511.

On Sunday I received a very special gift from Smouldering Wicks, one of our craft stall

holders who attended in 2009 and came to join us again this year. Gail presented me

with an everlasting candle with the inscription ‘St Peter's. This candle means so much

to both myself and Gail and caused me to have more than a few tears.

The candle is going to have pride of place on our church altar.

Sunday evening we had a songs of praise which was enjoyed by all who attended.

Monday was very busy all day too. Chris was doing double the amount of quarry trips he planned to do,

lots of families were enjoying the children's quiz, people were enjoying looking at the displays and sitting down to hear our pipe organ played. It was very sad when 5:00pm came and all the visitors started to leave and the craft

stall holders started packing away.

Redgate Farm Animal

Sanctuary Fundraising

Handmade Wooden Puzzles

Traditional Ice Cream

Clare’s Little Cupcake Co.

Scripture inspired paintings

Crafts from the Heath

Handmade Gifts & Accessories

Forever Living Products

my Sister and Me Various Handmade Crafts

What a wonderful group of craft stall holders we had, we enjoyed the company of all of you. We made new friends with craft stall holders joining us for the first time this year; we were very happy to welcome back so many of you who had joined us in 2009; Eileen and Doreen returned who first joined us in 2007 and Margaret informed me she was returning for her seventh time (she first joined us in 1999) as did Mick and June who now also bring along their grandchildren to share in the fun. Thank you to those of you who donated goods from your stall for our raffle too. Please continue to support our craft stall holders, there are links to those with websites above.