The evening of Friday 7th December 2012 was the first ever Xmas event of any significance that I can ever recall in the village. Inside Hadfield Hall (pictured above) were various craft stalls along with a FOHS stall where we were giving away books, raising funds through donations, hoping to meet future members and selling for the very first time our brand new Friends of Hadfield Station mugs. A full blogpost along with a picture of the mugs will follow soon. By the end of the event we had sold 15 which was a fair start.
Here's a picture of Jeff Mann, keeping warm indoors, under the pretence of manning the stall (pun intended).
The idea of the inaugural Christmas Market was to build on the success of the opening of the Hadfield Heritage Trail earlier in the year (featured in a previous blog) and the hope is to make it a regular feature of the village calendar. Many of the organisers had also been involved in the Heritage Trail campaign, including our very own Joy Hallsworth who is also Chair of FOHS.
It was a chilly but calm and more importantly, a rain free evening (following 48 hours of deluge, not to mention an entire years worth of the wet stuff). Outside of the cosy hall there was entertainment in the form of a five piece jazz ensemble which provided a pleasant backdrop to the evenings events..
The main fayre was the Lantern Parade which was well attended and which took a circular walk from the Hall, up Station Road, past the Anchor, down Kiln Lane and back up Station Road to the Hall. Preparation had been the key with workshops having taken place in the weeks prior to the event both in the village schools and at Hadfield Hall itself, where instruction had been given on how to make your own lantern, some of which are pictured below.. I seem to recognise that face in the crowd as Paul Bennett, son of former Labour Cllr. Ralph though please correct me if I'm wrong.
The event passed off successfully and it was nice for something to happen in the village at Christmas time for once. Let's hope it does happen more than the once though and that it truly becomes an annual event that yougsters and their parents can look forward to.
FOHS acheived their aim on the night, which was to raise a little money, locate a few interested bodies and just to be there to help make ourselves known in the community. Perhaps one year soon we will be able to host the event in the station yard opposite the Hall, weather permitting - of course. Events are made or broken by it (re: Hadfield Carnival) but thankfully this year fortune favoured the brave organisers who briefly lit up the village and a fair number of young faces.
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