Held on Saturday the 10th December, 41 lucky members of the British Polio Fellowship joined in for the 2022 annual Christmas draw and party at our get together venue in
Durrington. The room looked very festive indeed with tables full of gifts, Prizes and another full of Christmas food. Pictures can be seen in the centre pages.
Gill White brought along her Christmas post wall, this is for the members to send and receive Christmas cards to each other without using the Post Office and with a separate pocket for each guest, our dedicated team of posties soon sorted the cards into the appropriate pockets on the post wall and delivered them to the guests. This saves members many hundreds of pounds in postage with stamps costing from 68p each.
Very soon Terry and Roger, raffle books in hand, were busy selling tickets for the grand draw, and didn't they do well? Selling a fantastic £275 of tickets. Soon after the tickets were sold the grand draw began and while the draw was in full swing, Barbara, Karen and their merry band of helpers prepared and served the festive Christmas food to the guests who were soon tucking into some of the old Christmas favourites. My favourite Christmas fare has always been Mums (Barbaras) Chocolate crumb cake, a concoction of melted chocolate, treacle and crushed up digestive biscuits, a recipe from her 1955 book of family favourite recipes. yummy yum yum. What’s yours?
We also had four very excited young children at the party, there main job was to run around screaming but were asked to hand out the Christmas gifts to all the guests, which they loved doing, especially as there was a Christmas present for each of them too. Thanks to 8 year old Priya 7yo Ava, and 4yo Jacob and Noah. Priya and Ava also helped set the tables.
All too soon the party was over, people said their good byes with hugs and kisses and wished each other a happy Christmas and new year. A very pleasant afternoon indeed, although I didn’t win anything in the grand draw this year.
Unfortuately our super Chairman Bob Stephens was unable to join us for the Christmas get together, first time ever, as he was not feeling too well, which after PCR test turned out to be the dreaded Covid. Barbara and Karen Z were also infected a few days later, but luckily it was all over by Christmas day. Fortunately Robin and his wife Karen S escaped the bugs, err so far. A big thanks to all helpers, but especially Bob and Barbara's daughter Karen Ziaie who bought and wrapped all the Christmas presents as well as buying preparing and sorting out the magnificent Christmas food table and serving it to the guests.
Anyway, I hope you had a lovely Christmas and hope 2023 will be good for you, despite the fuel, food, NHS, train travel, posties, teachers and nurse’s crisis/Chaos. Ho hum. Cheers Robin and Karen Stephens xxx