Picnic and Fun Day - SUCCESS!!!

On Sunday the community group held our first event. We had talked about it for a few months and we wanted to put something on at the end of the summer to give us some funds to help going forwards, now that we have official treasurers and everything! We really needed to do a fund raiser, but with only a few of us actively involved all of the time and no budget, how would we manage? Well let me tell you!

We kept things simple, sometimes it's the best way. We decided to make it a free event because when something is free nobody can be dissappointed right?! After a few hiccups trying to sort some acoustic music because of the lack of power in the gardens and almost feeling like we wouldn't have an event, a few local bands came together and all offered  their services for free, but they also reached into their own pockets to hire a generator and came down on both days at the weekend to help set up. My goodness what legends those guys were. We were so grateful and they are so lovely and generous. 

We made some posters and told everyone to bring their own picnics as there would be no food or drinks on sale and we borrowed bunting from the church. It threatened to rain all weekend so the church also kindly offered us their hall if it all went wrong. Luckily it didn't!

Anyway, I'll start you off by showing you all the things we did to set up on Saturday. First things first, the weather over the recent weeks and having all of the trees finally cut back by Harrow Council, meant that we needed to borrow a leaf blower off my neighbour to clean up drastically, there were sticks and leaf debris everywhere and also rubbish dropped by the new influx of students at the college and blown in from the street, which the litter pickers came in useful for!

We also needed to put up some bird boxes and butterfly houses which have been donated, a new sign made by Lesley near the entrance and a new community notice board which should last at least one winter now as it was made me and my friend Mark out of upcycled wood which was donated by a local school. I love re-using things and limiting waste!

My brother and I headed up Saturday morning with the borrowed leaf blower donated goods, a ladder and a drill and he helped me get everything high enough to avoid theft.  (hopefully)

 

^^ Lesley's sign. Cute huh? ^^

 ^^ Bird box, also donated by Lesley and has been sitting at my house for a while, finally mounted on the new chopped tree, our monolith. ^^

 ^^ The band came by on Saturday night to set up the small patform they had made to perform on and Stuart and I got all the bunting up with Irving. ^^

^^ Lesley made this collage which I think is rather lovely. Top left is me playing with my favourite new toy, the leaf blower! Middle is the stage and top right is the gates that evening after we had put all of the decorations up and locked up. Bottom left are the Lovely Chords setting up their stage and bottom right is me up a ladder out the front putting up bunting. ^^

On Sunday Morning, the chords came in and set up, using the camper van awning and successfully hiding the generator behind it, we were starting to get a nice festival feel! They warmed up and sound checked and people out on the street came and looked in on us when they heard the music outside, some were very surprised!

The Chords also busked out the front for us to entice people in. You can see the videos on their facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/The-Chords-391418657733360/timeline/

Please go and check them out and give them a like. 

More people started turning up including our other musicians, Chris Harvey, Frank and Harmony, two ladies with great voices who sung beautifully together. What absolute legends!

Oh and did I mention, the sun shone? Thoughout most of the day? It was so meant to be!

The last thing to turn up was the mosaic taxi. Ladies and gents I present to you, the Zulu Voodoo Liberation Taxi.

 

People gasped and gathered round it as it came in, looking closer at the intricate and stunning mosaic asking all about the cause. If you were there and enjoyed it, you can find out more about the artists at Carrie's website. 

http://carriereichardt.com/

 

 This lady is Victoria. She's a really lovely person and has donated us a gorgeous rose bush which is now planted in the front beds. She also made us this gorgeous heart which I'm going to try and get hung up in one of the trees. 

Thank you again Victoria. We love it. 

And just a few more from the day. Lesley's lovely neighbours below enjoying the music.

A couple and their little girl looking on and eating a nice picnic.

And this gorgeous couple on the bench who I enticed in on the way back from their shopping trip and they loved it!

We had such a great day, it was so wonderful to get the whole community out.

As the event was free we operated on a donation only policy. We had a bucket which went round all afternoon, and you know what? We only blooming well made the huge sum of £250.08

This exceeded our expectations. I think we all would have been happy with less than that and it puts us in a really good place to have a little money for the future, for our shed, or a future event, or gardening tools. Anything!

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to everyone who got involved or came and just enjoyed the day and put a coin or a note into our bucket. We are so grateful and can't wait to do it again. It gave us all a buzz and a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

On to the next one. If anyone has any more fundraising ideas, you know you can find us on any of the social media links on the right. We also have an email address which is bernaysgardens@hotmail.com and we actively chat away on Facebook together. 

Next project, digging up some ground, planting some palms and planting bulbs.

Can anyone help us? If so, please drop us a line.