You may have heard a whisper that we’re celebrating a very BIG anniversary in 2023… Well, maybe not a whisper, in fact, we’ve been shouting it loudly everywhere we can, wherever and whenever possible!
In 2023 Home-Start Royston, Buntingford & South Cambridgeshire celebrate 40 years of working together with our local community, supporting parents and children, helping families to feel stronger, happier and healthier.
The first of many celebrations…
To kick off our 40th celebrations, we held a crafting session for our current volunteers. This was an opportunity to say a big thank you for all their hard work and support for families throughout, as well as providing the chance to make something magnificent! The session was meticulously planned by two of our wonderful volunteers, Linda and Anita, who brought buckets of creativity, ideas, resources and plenty of patience to the event.
We wanted this to be a special celebration of HSRBSC, where we could come together, eat cake and drink tea – as that is so very Home-Start, but also to have something to show at the end of it all. Cue the creative folk with their ideas about making something we could then take on and use at other events throughout this 40th year.
We gathered together all available sewing machines and met at the Barkway Pavilion. Linda and Anita had spent hours planning the running of the event, which ensured that there was something for everyone. They brought with them beautiful material and resources, having made sure that everything was prepared for us to all start sewing. Volunteers dipped in and out of the session, trying out the sewing machines and practising blanket stitch, and together we sewed some beautiful bunting that our charity will showcase at our events this year and will be used for many years to come. can keep and use forever, and we plan to showcase at the rest of our events this year. The event was all sewn together as we shared tea, coffee and home made cakes – (thank you to our cake makers), trying very hard not to get crumbs in our stitching. The atmosphere was relaxed, friendly and fun, and at the end of the session, when we held up our almost finished product, we felt proud of what we had achieved.
Home-Start is all about building relationships and working together to achieve something good. Its about empowering people, helping them to find their way so by the end of their Home-Start journey, they feel confident and able to carry on independently. Our bunting event epitomised the essence of Home-Start. We worked together, all coming at it from different levels and experiences, had fun, shared experience and knowledge and ended up with something wonderful at the end! And I’m pleased to say no fingers were sewn in the making of the bunting!!
Sarah Mascall, Scheme Manager
Bunting in Barkway – a volunteers view
We asked Linda to tell us how she felt the morning went, and this is what she shared:
‘Sharing’ epitomises one of the wonderful themes of the work and camaraderie among Home-Start Royston, Buntingford & South Cambridgeshire’s staff and volunteers. It permeated right through the morning of Tuesday, 7th of February, when they gathered in sunny Barkway Pavilion to make bunting to celebrate and promote the Scheme’s 40th Anniversary, this year.
Both the anniversary, and completion of the bunting are great achievements, as you will see from the morning’s end result, which has already helped us raise a superb £496.50 at the recent bucket collection in Tesco, Royston!
The staff team set the tone with coffee, tea and yummy home-made cakes and an invitation to take part in the sewing or simply mingle and chat and get to know one another a little better.
Some Bunting-makers kindly brought their sewing machines and helped novices to negotiate the trickier seams and turnings of the pennants; others shared their skills in appliqué and blanket stitch to ensure the letters remain firmly attached to the bunting, even in the face of the wind and rain of Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire. And to make sure it all looked professional when finished, all the pennants were carefully ironed so that a volunteer could sew them into the binding.
Meanwhile, others made felt brooches and hearts in Home-Start colours, as keepsakes and reminders of a gentle, happy and very satisfying morning’s work. Do look out for the finished article at our many events and fund-raising activities!
