Just a “small” article in The Broadstone Link!
Christmas 2017 saw Broadstone in darkness. No trees, no lights and no festivities. It was a little-known fact that unlike other areas, Broadstone did not receive funding for this. Up until 2018, it relied upon the Broadstone Chamber of Trade & Commerce for its Christmas lights, which had sadly ceased operations earlier that year.
It started with a … post!
A simple Facebook post, asking why there were no lights this year, prompted a strong response from many residents. So many people felt the way we did – it just wasn’t Christmas without the lights on the Broadway! People wanted to get them reinstated as quickly as possible. Whilst it was too late for 2017, we decided to step in and pick up the Christmas baton and make 2018 happen. How hard could it be?!
‘Save The Broadstone Christmas Lights!’ was born…
Firstly, we set up the Facebook page. Hugely popular, it quickly became apparent that we needed to meet people, get residents together and talk through ways we could raise funds for the lights. Several meetings were kindly hosted by Molly’s café in the evenings, where we put together an action plan and discovered all the (many) hoops we needed to jump through, in order to make this happen. Neither of us had a clue what was involved and we felt daunted, but determined.
A community bank account quickly followed and we got to grips with family fun days, quiz nights and door knocking on every business on the Broadway (and surrounding.) It took an immense amount of hard work, but was so much fun to get involved in these events, meet the community and raise money! There have been a large handful of local people, who have worked tirelessly with us and been incredibly supportive since the very beginning. They’re there to help us at every stage and we are truly grateful to them all. Thank you.
Snowballing our way back!
With a massive group effort, we all made it happen – Broadstone sparkled in 2018 and it glittered in 2019. We were on a roll, but sadly due to the pandemic we find ourselves in this year, Christmas is looking a little different. We have done our very best to bring some festivity to Broadstone on the tight budget we have – when businesses have had a chance to regain some stability and community events are allowed to proceed once more, we will be back raising funds and doing all we can to ensure that Broadstone is beautiful for Christmas next year. Roll on, 2021!
All donations are hugely appreciated:
| Account name: | Save The Broadstone Christmas Lights! |
| Bank: | Barclays |
| Sort code: | 20-11-43 |
| Account number: | 53929396 |
Charlotte and Ruth
