The blog has been a bit quiet over the last couple of weeks as any spare time I’ve had has been used organising stuff and linking up with the great group of people we have organising the Queens Road Big Lunch. As we have been busy pulling all of this together for the last 5 weeks and there are now 8 weeks left until the big day, I thought it was high time I posted another update.
So, my early pessimism about getting this one off the ground has been replaced with a real sense of fun and enjoyment about the organisation this year – a great group of motivated people who genuinely want to make Queens Road a friendlier, more sociable place to live and who want a great big Big Lunch Street Party this year, bigger and better than last year.
So, that’s where we’ll start – we are aiming for a maximum of 250 attendees – Queens Road residents and their invited guests. We have the Public Liability insurance in place, the application for the road closure has been made and we await the council’s response but we are very positive about it. As it stands today, from conversations we’ve had with residents going door to door and slips received through our letterboxes we have 177 people attending. HOWEVER – there are still a good number of households who haven’t told us one way or the other and so I would urge you to fill in the slip on the last flyer telling us if you are coming and if so how many adults and children. Please post it through No82’s letterbox.
Also, we are struggling to get donations in from people – even many of those who told me that they are going to donate still haven’t done so yet and so please could you complete that same form and put it with the donation through the letterbox of Sue at No19.
As we have a few concerns about covering costs and so have decided to hold a Fundraising Quiz Night on Thursday 3rd June – you should have received a flyer this weekend with the details.
So, that is the admin, now the interesting stuff….we are pretty much doing everything we did last year but it will be better organised and so we’ll get the most out of everything. We are going to have a centralised bring and share food area as everyone thought that was great last year. If you live on the side of the road which the post box is on – OX16 0EB you will need to bring savoury, salad or BBQ items and those of us on the other side OX16 0ED, we’ll all be bringing sweet items. On top of that we have a new addition of an ice cream “scoops and sprinkles” stand where the children (and no doubt a few adults) can make their own ice cream creations.
In terms of competitions we have the “Best Dressed House” and the “Best Child’s Costume”; in addition we are going to have a bumper raffle again and competitions for “Junk Modelling” and something related to produce (maybe the best animal model made from vegetables ?!) – more info to follow.
A bouncy castle, face painting, coloured hair spraying, dancing games, soft play for the children, a book exchange, produce exchange, washing line of wants, a fire engine and local police / neighbourhood watch will all be elements of the street party. Antony will be DJing again and we are lining up a number of musicians to play various types of music for us.
We are still busy organising and planning elements but if you have any ideas please let us know and we’ll see what we can do.
We are going to try to organise the sun like this weekend but that may be a little more difficult to confirm !!
Hope you have a good week – only 8 to go until the Queens Road Big Lunch Street Party 2010.
Tim
Biglunchqueensroad's Blog 