Fundraising Update

Posted on by
1

Christmas Lights Donations

I know it seems like a lifetime since last year’s  “Switch On”, but the fundraising for the Christmas Lights is an all year round activity. As ever, it seems that the goodwill and generosity of our local community can always be relied on despite these difficult times.

We would like to thank all our donors for their generosity and make special mention of some recent major contributions.(with apologies to any who may have been omitted).

Firstly, thanks to the staff and pupils of the Queen Elizabeth Humanities College, who donated £1000 from their Christmas Wassail – a significant contribution to this season’s fundraising target of £8000.

Secondly to the former pupils of the QE, who raised an excellent £100 at their recent “Reunion” – Thank you for your generosity.

The yellow collection boxes that are on the shop counters of many local businesses are a very important source of income  If you have enjoyed the lights and you would like to see them continue, please put your loose change in these boxes – it does make a real difference.

If you would like to make a larger donation, or organise a fund raising event please contact Geoff McGladdery on 01885 490799 or by email on geoffmac@globalnet.co.uk.

All sums raised go solely to running, maintaining and improving the Bromyard Christmas Lights. There are no deductions for administrative costs – all your money goes directly to the lights. As with everything to do with the lights, everyone gives their time for nothing

Apart from the welcome grant from the Bromyard and Winslow Town Council, the future of Bromyard Christmas Lights is dependent on donations and collections to ensure its future.

The “switch on” of the 2013 – 2014 edition of Bromyard Christmas Lights  – the 48th, will take place on Saturday November 23rd at the usual time of 5:00 p.m. , so make a note in your diaries

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Marmalade Festival 2013

Posted on by
Reply

marmalade festivalJust a reminder that the Herefordshire Marmalade Festival is taking place between Thursday 28th February and 3rd March 2013 in various venues in and around Bromyard.

All proceeds go to the festival’s chosen charities, Midlands Air Ambulance and St Michael’s Hospice, so as well as having a fun time you can help keep going the important work carried out by these two well known organisations.

The full programme of events can be viewed here.

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Christmas Lights Funding

Posted on by
Reply

Christmas LightsChristmas Lights displays are put up in Hereford City and all five Herefordshire market towns but even impartial observers comment that Bromyard’s display is the best and most enjoyable.

With that in mind a recent question at a Bromyard and Winslow Town Council meeting was posed as to how much different councils contribute to their town’s Christmas Lights.

I must admit I was expecting to find that Hereford City’s lights were still funded by the County Council as another example of their Hereford-centric habits. It appears that isn’t the case but the answers are nonetheless very interesting and enlightening.

Bearing in mind the fact that our Council contributed £2000 last year to the Bromyard Christmas Lights and is proposing the same again this year, here are the figures for the other towns:

  • Hereford City Lights are paid for by the City Council and in 2012 a budget of £41,000 was allocated, plus another £8000 for entertainment on the day of the Switch-On
  • Ross on Wye Town Council contribute £12,000 which is shown as a separate item within their budgets
  • Ledbury Town Council lease their display at a cost of £15,000
  • Leominster Town Council contract out and pay £15,000
  • Kington Town Council contract out and pay £5000

So if I hear anyone moan about the cost of our Christmas Lights again I will nominate them to be hung from a lamp post on Broad Street, with a light bulb in each orifice, as the 2013 illuminations special feature!

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Final Thoughts 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Some final thoughts from Roger Wilkins on the 2012 Bromyard Lights:

Returning from my grand-daughter’s christening up in Cumbria on Sunday evening, I had a huge feeling of sadness, driving through the town with the Christmas Lights extinguished. When you have lived and breathed Christmas Lights since the October, and checked them
virtually every evening, it is a shock to the system!

Ian and Edgar had passed through the town earlier, unplugging all the cables and this bringing to an end the 2012/3 display.  That, of course, is not the end of the story; this Sunday, come hell or high water, it will be “all hands to the deck” to get the display down and packed away in the stores.  It is really the busiest of the days!  Roo Evans was ill last week, and that, together with a couple of absences, made it more sense to defer the work to the following weekend.

We are quietly quite proud that the display has stood up so well to what has undoubtedly been the wettest season of lights ever.  Electricity and water are uneasy bedfellows, but this year has thankfully been relatively trouble free.

There have, of course, been failures; the electronics on the Bell on Shun Fat were an early casualty, although this has always been a bit troublesome.  After all, it was previously scrapped by Hereford, only to be rejuvenated by us.  We will see if we can do it again!

Happy Xmas, happily relocated to the Square, failed just after Christmas.  One of the microswitches on the old-fashioned motor cam unit burned out.  If it resurfaces, it will be low voltage, with one of our new Bromyard built programmable electronic controllers.  It is a bit old – built 1979!

Then the snowflakes decided to go on strike; this may be a surfeit of water – we will see when we get it down.  Finally, there were odd sporadic tripping out of sections, especially at the top of town, for no apparent reason.  It is not always easy tracing a fault on a system with hundreds of electrical connections, sixteen foot up in the air!  Edgar Whiteley has been on regular call with his ladder, giving access to the controllers; we even reset one trip on Christmas Day.  However, in all, it has not been a bad year at all, and Roo’s spectacular Cracker has been faultless, and favourably commented upon by many.

We will report again shortly on the financial situation; we are really humbled by the many donations, large and small, that have been made.  The money-raising goes on, however. The expressions of thanks, in words, or monetarily! -  make it all really worthwhile.

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Community Singing 2012

Posted on by
Reply

community singingThe new addition to this year’s programme – the community singing – was judged to have been a great success.

Starting immediately after the ‘switch-on’, David Kemp (pictured) enthusiastically conducted proceedings from the balcony of Flowerdews and a large and good natured crowd did their best to brighten an otherwise gloomy and soggy evening.

The Bromyard Wind Band, The Choral Society and the QEHC provided very solid foundations and we thank them for their contributions throughout the afternoon. Song sheets were generously provided by Polytec.

David Kemp has kindly offered to do this again – we are sure  he will build on this good start.

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Donations 2012

Posted on by
Reply

Bromyard & District Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Press Release

Christmas LightsChristmas Lights Donations

Apart from a small, but welcome grant from the Bromyard and Winslow Town Council, the future of Bromyard Christmas Lights is dependent on donations and collections to ensure its future.

The goodwill and generosity of our local community seems to know no bounds, despite these difficult times.

We would like to thank all our donors for their generosity and make mention of these recent major contributions (with apologies to any who may have been omitted):

  • Clive Richards Charity – £2500
  • Mrs Maureen Tinton on behalf of the Former Bromyard Traders Association – £471
  • Bromyard Motor Cycle Club – £394
  • Nozstock - £300

The Chamber’s Christmas Lunch raffle raised £237 and the street collection on a very wet ‘switch-on’ afternoon raised £193.

The yellow collection boxes that are on the shop counters of many local businesses are a very important source of income as are the special boxes in most of the town’s pubs. We will be announcing the amounts raised from these two sources in the New Year.

If you have enjoyed the lights and you would like to see them continue, please put your loose change in these boxes. If you would like to make a larger donation, or organise a fund raising event please contact Geoff McGladdery on 01885 490799 or by email on geoffmac@globalnet.co.uk.

All sums raised go solely to running, maintaining and improving the Bromyard Christmas Lights.

We would also like to thank those who donate their time and their facilities to the Christmas Lights, often anonymously. Take a bow! Your contribution is vital, you have helped to maintain a great tradition.

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Roger’s Last Word

Posted on by
Reply

Final word from Roger Wilkins.

Well, it’s late on Saturday evening, after the switch-on and all seemed to go well.  Clive Richards pressed the switch (and yes, it is a real switch which controls about half the lights in the Square – the Light Brigade followed on by, as quickly as possible, switching on the other seven feeds and everything happened as it should.  What is more, when I checked later, they had all gone out as planned as well!

Bromyard was on top form this afternoon, with a great attendance despite the steady rain. Santa’s grotto proved popular, and although takings were a little down (they were bound to be so) there was a content stream of children, plus parents and grandparents, the whole afternoon. We should be thankful it was not raining as hard as it was later in the evening!

I hope many noticed the substantial alterations to the Grotto, planned and executed by Brian Johnson and friends. The decoration of half of the interior as snow scenes, coupled with both the Wardrobe and the Witch from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was a major piece of work.  The fact that this pretty substantial building comes together in the morning, and has gone in the evening, is quite a logistical operation – not to mention the actual operation of the grotto, the purchase and wrapping of the presents, and the hard work of Santa himself.

We have had plenty of kind comments about the Cracker – Roo’s latest masterpiece, of which we are all very proud. He is already working on an idea for next year…….

Now we just hope for as few problems as possible. There are always odd faults with a complex setup such as this, but we check the lights every evening. If you spot a problem, please do let us know straight away.

And finally a big thank-you to people who put up with the odd delay and inconvenience as we worked.  There were very few complaints, although two of our crew received quite offensive and unrepeatable torrents of abuse – on each occasion from members of the fairer sex!   This was more than compensated by the many toots and waves from people supporting what we did, and people stopping by to chat and see progress. So thanks all.

Despite the atrocious weather, Children, parents and grandparents queued throughout the afternoon to visit Santa’s Grotto. Thanks go to Brian Johnson and his team, who organize this hugely popular part of ‘Switch-on’

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare

Christmas Lights – Final Installations

Posted on by
Reply

bromyard christmas lightsLight Brigade complete last minute installation work – from Roger Wilkins.

Thursday night meant another session on the Christmas Lights, in some truly abominable rain, but it did dry up a bit later, although your worthy crew were struggling with numb fingers!

The highly unusual evening session was to install the controller on the newly erected Cracker set-piece adjacent to HSBC.

Before that, we started by arranging some new cabling in the Square to ensure that all the lights do indeed come on at once when Clive Richards presses the switch on Saturday at 5.00pm.

After that, we installed new MCB trips on the feeds at the Laundrette and at Sez, before spending a good hour on the Cracker.  After that it was back to the Square, to install a new spotlight (which shines up at the fairy on the tree) and then put further decorations on the tree.  Thanks to the Hop Pole for helping us thaw out with some much needed tea!

The forecast for Saturday is awful, which is such a shame, but we will do our best to make sure everything goes to plan, come what may.  Bring your brollies!

We hope we get a better reception than a town in the South East where, according to the papers, the crowd booed the lights after the switch on because they were so poor! We know that much of our lights look the same from year to year, but with our voluntarily run outfit we simply cannot afford to replace large sections each year.  You will see some changes, and of course we are keeping up our commitment for a new and hopefully exciting set piece each year.  Come and see what you think.

Follow us on Twitter: @BromyardLights

See our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/BromyardChristmasLights

Bookmark/FavoritesFacebookTwitterLinkedInPinterestShare