All The Jingle Ladies

No matter what anyone says, I truly believe that Christmas is the best time of year. So when I had the opportunity to lead a festive community mission, I leaped at the chance! Today's mission was at Nunsmoor Centre and we were going to be helping out at their Winter Festival - an event for the local community to come together and celebrate, heading towards the holiday season.

I arrived at Nunsmoor Centre and spoke to our lovely task owner, Alyson, who explained that we would be helping with some of the children's activities today. In the main hall, stalls were being set up ready for the event to start. Alyson informed me that there had been a plan to have a marquee outside with some of the stalls but that the strong winds had scuppered their plans. Unphased by this, all of the volunteers and staff banded together to make sure that the event could continue and utilised the space they had to the best of their abilities.

The women were out in full force today and we had an all-female team signed up for the task; Liz, Aimee, Miranda and myself.

I was going to be assisting Nunsmoor staff member Shamim and her daughter Imaan with cake and gingerbread man decoration. We had packs of plain cakes and gingerbread figures as well as buttercream, tubes of different coloured icing and sugar paper Christmas shapes so that the children of the community could decorate a festive treat to take home (although most sweet treats didn't make it much further than the table!)

Liz arrived shortly afterward and got straight to helping with some very glittery pine cone decorating near the front reception. Alongside Liz's decoration station was a wreath-making workshop where the parents in the community could create beautiful wreaths to decorate their homes. Check out the photos for one of them - so professional looking!

Aimee and Miranda arrived a little while afterward, providing some much-needed additional support at the cake decoration stall which had turned out to be hugely popular (after all, who doesn't love free cake?)

After many, many decorated treats and super sticky hands, we heard that a very special guest was going to be turning on the Christmas lights. That's right - Santa himself! Sadly we didn't get a chance to have a group photo with Santa as he had to rush off after the event - I suppose we can forgive him considering how busy he must be at this time of year!

As the Winter Festival drew to a close, we started to pack everything away and tidy. Alyson and all of the staff at Nunsmoor had also left us a Christmas card and some chocolates to share at the next group run as a sign of their appreciation for all the help they have received from GoodGym this year.

Come along to the group run tomorrow to Recyke Y'Bike in Byker - we promise to share the sweets!