Children's Party to celebrate the Royal Wedding
When our Branch Secretary, Liz Emery, suggested holding a children’s party to celebrate the Royal Wedding, some of our committee had worries that people would be ‘doing their own thing’, attending street parties or that any money we raised to provide the party should perhaps be going towards other Mothers’ Union (MU) projects. Trusting in Liz’s firm belief in the idea we decided at least to gauge interest from the groups we intended to invite. We agreed it should be limited to children up to 8 years (but that older siblings would be welcomed).
We initially wanted to invite babies and children who use St Faith’s Parish Centre and this included the babies who come to the Sure Start Bumps & Babies group at which our branch helps and we had the support of Sure Start worker Yasmin who agreed to make a ‘safe area’ for the babies.
We also approached St Faith’s junior church and toddlers from Rainbow Toddlers pre-school group held in one of our halls. When Liz visited this latter group to invite them she was met with a stony silence - this seemed a low point.
From there things improved and gradually names were added to the list. Our vicar Peter agreed to advertise in The Mailing List (a church publication which reaches households in Lee-on-the-Solent) and an entertainer offered his services free. Two fundraising events, a cake stall after the parish Eucharist and a raffle at our Spring Fair raised enough money to hold the party. We had the full support of our branch and offers to cake-bake and help came from both them and from members of the congregation.
So on the afternoon of 29 April St Faith’s Bulson Hall was filled with 40+ highly energetic children with parents and grandparents ready to party. The hall looked wonderfully patriotic and festive, as did many of the party guests. The entertainer kept the children busy and an old-fashioned tea party was enjoyed by the young ones while the adults had sandwiches, scones and tea plus ‘Wedding Cake’ (made by Liz to the recipe for the cake on the MU stand at wedding fayres). Although we hadn’t intended to charge we decided to put out a bowl for donations, explaining that this money would go to this year’s AFIA Holiday.
Each child had a Royal Wedding balloon and flag on leaving but best of all the party was a wonderful outreach both for Mothers’ Union and for St Faith’s church thanks to Liz’s inspirational idea and it celebrated what we are sure will be a very ‘faithful relationship’ between the Royal couple.
Sue Hamilton, Branch Leader, St Faith’s, Lee on the Solent