Thanks to Jan of the Literary Teapot Blog for this report …
As well as trees from groups such as the Scouts, Guides and Messy Church, there were trees from Abingdon Carbon Cutters, Abingdon Writers, Frend the jewellers (not real jewels, unfortunately) and Rosie’s tea shop (decorated with salt dough teapots!) There was also a prayer tree where people wrote on cards the names of people they would like the church to pray for.
All this support was very welcome and the result was wonderful: we raised over £500 for Oxford Homeless Pathways, and John Lewis High Wycombe generously added another £100.
What a fantastic idea. Where was this Tree Festival held? All sorts of things/events seem to happen in Abingdon and I don’t hear about them until it is too late. Is there some kind of central ‘notice board’ where events/happenings are listed?
It was at All Saints Church.
All Saints Methodist Church Abingdon. Corner of Dorchester Crescent and Appleford Drive.
http://www.allsaintsabingdon.org.uk/
Cassandra – as you say, it is SO difficult to find out about events – some of us have been battering away at this issue for years without much success. The problem is that different people like to get their information in different ways – its hard to please everyone.
Noticeboards – the Town Council has noticeboards outside their offices, in the Market Place and at pther locations around the town; there are also noticeboards on some bus shelters and a new one at Reynolds Way shops (I think it is in place now – if not, soon will be).
Some shops have a good range of notices in their windows, Mostly Books for example). A lot of events are also posted on the boards in the Library.
The Abingdon Herald has a comprehensive Whats On section in the paper and online.
For those with internet access, both the Town Council and Choose Abingdon websites have events calendars -see links from the top of this page. These are probably the most comprehensive lists and are continually updated. The Town Council can provide print-offs of their list on request and Choose Abingdon produces a hard copy Whats On leaflet about once a quarter which is widely available around town and in Round & About magazine.
BUT… all of these routes rely on event organisers providing details of their events: many of them have their own distibrution methods which presumably reach their own “normal” audience and maybe they don’t feel the need to publicise them more widely; or they may simply not have enough volunteers to take notices around, send copy to online diaries etc.
Sorry for the length of this post but I know that you are not alone in this view so thought a summary of what IS available might help.
We didn’t hear about this but would love to be involved next year
Hope to be repeated around Advent 2012, will put a note in my diary to post something on the blog. have a Happy New Year..