As in previous years, we joined Rotary York Ainsty's Santa sleigh to provide some elves to go door-to-door collecting donations for York Mind. We were lucky that the temperature was a balmy 11 degrees this evening - much better than previous years' rain and very cold temperatures. The sleigh made its way through the streets of Woodthorpe, stopping regularly so that Santa (aka GG-er James) could have a chat and give out sweets to some of the local children. Lots of people had their cash ready for us and one chap gave us a small bag full of coins that he had collected. A lack of cash was not a barrier as, for the first time, one of our elves (Nick) had the York Mind card reader app on his phone so he could take card payments without people needing to go to the card reader with the sleigh. It was great fun to shout "Nick" and see him come running! We had a pleasant 2½ hours of collecting before returning to our start point, tired but feeling more in the Christmas spirit. We will find out later exactly how much we have collected - can we beat last year's total?

Santa needs all the help he can get at this time of year, and there was a Salvation army of hands helping out. Our task was to sort donated new toys into age groups and gender. Then we filled each named red sack with a selection of toys, books, craft activities and a selection box from the huge pile, according to age. It was fun to imagine the child, and choose the goodies that would make a good sackful for them. We were soon reminiscing about our favourite toys at different ages. This is a huge operation, but nothing's too big for Santa!