This year’s Summer Fair! Wow, what a day it was yesterday!
It all started with the friendly, dancing Olaf opening the fair with our Golden Ticket winner, Harrison Barnes.
The school grounds soon filled up with children & their families excitedly exploring all the fair had to offer.
In the arena, Mr Moore’s Musical Theatre club opened up proceedings performing ‘If only you would listen’ from School of Rock.
We were also treated by the school choir singing a Matilda classic, ‘When I grow up’. What a great performance by all the children, bravo! Who doesn’t love theatre!?
Finishing off the arena acts were Bouncing with Donna, who showcased an energetic workout routine on their bouncy shoes, which many kids also had great fun bouncing around on!
The BBQ & Bar were busy throughout, serving up scrumptious burgers & hotdogs and refreshing Pimm’s & cold drinks, much needed on hot summer’s day!
Back after a few years hiatus was the extremely popular Soak the Teacher/Christen the Vicar! The very sporting Mr Moore, Mr O'Beirne and Rev Vickie took to the wet seat at various points and the children took gleeful delight (perhaps a bit too much!) in sponging them and some even paying extra to tip a whole bucket of cold water over them. Actually quite sensible with the sun beating down!
The Butser Neighbourhood Policing Team brought a police car for visitors to explore, very popular with aspiring policemen & women!
Funtime Castles & Soft Play, who ran the mega-inflatables, deserve a special shout-out as they went above & beyond by turning up after a very eventful morning themselves (!) but still came and provided great entertainment.
One of the new stalls was an instant hit, with young & old, Toilet Toss (or Poo in the Loo, Toss the Turd, Chuck the Muck, Bung the Dung). Who knew so much fun could be had by throwing fake, but realistic poo's into a toilet? Sometimes it’s the simple things in life!
There were so many others stalls & activities that bought fun & laughter, from Yucky Dip, Bottle Tombola and the MEGA raffle to Castle United’s football penalty challenge, the Scouts coconut shy and the Avenue Tennis Club.
Thank you to Henry Adams, our Headline Sponsor, for supporting the school and running a stall, very kindly donating back their takings to the PTA.
A HUGE thank you to ALL the volunteers yesterday. No matter if you gave 10 minutes or the whole day, you helped and that's what matters. It really does take a massive collective team effort to put on a successful fair and one as big as our one.
From ferrying tables & chairs, putting up fencing & bunting, prepping/cooking the BBQ, general cleaning, donning mascot suits, manning stalls to car parking duties, popping up gazebos, arranging the PA & music, washing up, general lugging stuff everywhere and soooo much more.
Big shout out to all the teachers, school staff & governors, coming into school on their weekend off. Some were there from the very start at 8am until the very end, that's dedication to the cause. We're very grateful to have that help and enthusiasm.
To all the businesses that sponsored, donated prizes, money & goods, we’re hugely appreciative to have the continued support from you all. Thank you!
To all the visitors yesterday that came and parted lots of your hard earned cash. Times are hard for many people at the moment and we try to make the fair as reasonable as possible for all whilst still trying to generate a healthy amount for PTA funds, so thank you for choosing to support the village school.
Our treasurer will be working very hard over the next week or so, counting up all the pennies and consolidating expenses so when the grand total is ready, watch this space....!
Huge thanks to the lovely external stalls & attractions that added something different to the fair. We hope you had fun & lots of visitors.
To all the parents/carers, who have been bombarded over the past few weeks with seemingly endless requests for jam jars, bottles, toys, cakes, gazebos, cool boxes etc! As the PTA knows full well being parents ourselves, how busy family life is, with not only school stuff but with the never-ending clubs and activities kids do these days amongst general life, and the last thing you probably want to hear is the PTA begging for a jam jar! But, without you & your contributions, the fair wouldn't have been the same. We promise to leave you alone now for a while!
The biggest thank you must go to the PTA committee for pulling off the fair with aplomb! All the months of planning, research, meetings, Whatsapps, and sooooo much more, was definitely all worth it. It’s great to have such a lovely bunch of parents on the PTA, there are a lot of laughs involved in the PTA which makes it’s such a great volunteering experience (so if you fancy getting more involved next year, do get in touch chair@stjohnspta.com)
When we walked around the fair, we watched children and their families having a whale of a time, laughing & smiling and thought, we created those moments to happen. It made all the work so worthwhile and one of the primary reasons why we do what we do. Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.
