Hedgerley Family Fun Day – August 2009 See Photos
A quintessential village day, we had everything – Slug racing, Biscuit decorating, bouncy Castle, Car Boot, Tombola and most important hot sunshine.
Flying in the face of recession, this year must surely rank as one of the best with record attendance and record receipts. We tried a lot of new things and some were huge successes; The Pimm’s pavilion universally enjoyed it seems and by the glazed looks of some of the ladies looking at the lads from the rugby club, that was pretty popular too! The Dog Show ran out of badges we had so many dogs, we ran out of coconuts again despite adding another bag. The raffle sold out of tickets completely, a first I think. Then there were the Oscars and BAFTA’s, a late arrival to the programme so if you missed them I am sorry but we really did have three Oscars and a BAFTA there to hold and chat to the winners.
Thanks to the Beaconsfield Fire Brigade for bringing their tender along and to Stuart and his Line dancing ladies – next year we will make you ALL join in! The kids races also proved popular although I must remember to lower the rope around the arena for the sprint, the competitive spirit saw a couple of lads nearly choke themselves in their enthusiasm. Ooops!
The HCV also kindly arranged for one of the sheep from Church Meadow to come along for us to guess the weight.
The guys from Wexham Hospital radio returned this year and were a fabulous help in keeping us informed and entertained throughout the day. Later on Michelle serenaded the crowds gathered at the Tea Tent.
Congratulations to the winners of the Sunflower competition who deserve a special mention as we had just three entries from the 450 seeds we sent with this magazine earlier in the year – and one of those came from Wyevale – no names but see the Hedgereleyevents.com website for a clue! A lovely lady from Stevenson Road also took the trouble to ring us to say she had grown her sunflower too, but the flower had not opened on the prescribed day, so had not brought it along.....we hope to have many more entries though next year!
I have many memories of the day but I will share just two. First was soon after the start of the Dog Show I had a few minutes to spare and wondered over to see how it was going. As I reached the arena I found it totally surrounded three or four deep with spectators and competitors all enthralled. Where had you all come from? It was just a stunning sight.
Second was a little later, I was in a far corner of the field when I saw a “glowing”, exhausted Dymphna rushing towards me “ ……we need more beer!!” I knew I had already emptied the cellar at the White Horse (Thanks Kevin), there was no more to come but the effort and commitment given by so many of you to make the day such a success was embodied in that moment! Thank you all, you know who you are.