Fund Raising

  

 

Clifton Campville Country Fair – 11^th June 2011

 

The Country Fair is the main fund raising event for the Coneyberry Millennium Green Trust.  People have asked what we do with the money raised.

 

Most of the maintenance work is carried out by the Trustees helped by a small band of regular volunteers, for which we are extremely grateful. Where we do not have the expertise, necessary equipment or the time we have to employ professionals.  Jobs such as pruning trees we leave to the experts.

 

In the past year, since the last Fair, we have replaced our mower.  The main recreation area is mown on a regular basis throughout the summer by our Chairman, John Bainbridge.  The wild flower area is cut once per year by a local cheese producer, after the flowers have seeded, and hay is made for his goats.  This is done free of charge. 

 

Strimming around the feature, play equipment, litter bins and other areas is carried out by a rota of the Trustees:  Scott Barnes, Steve Bradley and David Lodge all get involved in this.  Really big jobs, like removing the dead broom earlier this year, brings Rob Pugh into action with big machines being very generously loaned by Mr Robert Gilman. 

 

All of our hedges are cut once a year by Mr Robert Leedham; this is of enormous help to the Trust and the Trustees really appreciate the time, effort and expense Robert’s generosity saves us.

 

We have replaced all but one of the wooden benches with recycled plastic seats, which require no maintenance.  The final one will be replaced in the next month.  We have also provided a picnic table near the play equipment.

 

In July we are having the whole of the Green surveyed by the Wild Life Trust; this will include the pond.  They will then give guidance on how best to make the pond safely more accessible to all, especially to children for pond dipping, and tell us precisely what fauna and flora have made their home on the Green.  In readiness for this we had trees around the pond pruned earlier in the year.

 

This year’s Country Fair is largely the work of Lorna Robinson, our newest Trustee.  Lorna has organised all of the stalls, painted most of the advertising boards and generally worked her socks off since last year’s fair.  Lorna also serves on the Village Hall Management Committee which is a joint beneficiary of the funds we make on the fair.

 

Last, but certainly not least, is Bob Patchett who acted as compere at the Fair.  Bob is our longest serving Trustee and the man everyone goes to when they have a problem!

 

Plans for the coming year include improving the play equipment and carrying out some work on the pond.

 

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly thank all of the spouses of the Trustees who also work extremely hard on working party days and help to make our fund raising events happen:  Pam Patchett, Alan Robinson, Helen Pugh, Emma Barnes and Katherine Bradley.

 

We hope you enjoyed your day on the Green and if you believe you can help the Trustees in any way we would be delighted to hear from you.  In the meantime visit www.cliftoncampville.com for news of future events and to view photographs from this year’s Country Fair.  If you go to Events, Country Fair then Lancaster Bomber you can view a short video of the flypast, thanks to Vaughan Taylor.

 

We have made about £7,000.00, which will be shared with the Village Hall, so a huge thank you to everyone who has helped to make the day such a huge success and especially to all of our visitors.  

Eve Bainbridge – Secretary, Coneyberry Millennium Green Trust