Site Search:

Comments, complaints, broken links, disappointed hopes - please contact the caretaker.

31/10/2009

Events:

Flower Festivals at All Hallows

Flowers have been part of worship at All Hallows for many years. There is a photograph from the 1920’s of the Church decorated for a flower festival and I’m sure that the tradition of filling the Church with flowers and foliage for ‘high days and holidays’ goes back a long time before that.

This year’s festival, ‘Showstoppers’ is the latest in a series of annual festivals that grew from a seed of an idea, germinated by the Rev Paul Bagshaw back in 2004.

 
All Hallows had recently received a bequest from the estate of a Miss Flower who, we understand, was an Ordsall resident who had a great affection for All Hallows Church. A condition of the bequest was that flowers should be placed in Church each Whit Sunday (Pentecost) in memory of Miss Flower.  To build on this bequest we decided to hold an Annual Flower Festival.  We would love to find out more about Miss Flower and if anyone can tell us anything about her please let us know.

Flower Festival 2008 -

May 10th & 11th 2008

We had a glorious weekend with beautiful weather accompanying the fabulous and varied activities taking place in and around All Hallows Church.  Lots of children and their families enjoyed the holiday atmosphere of the Teddy Bear Parachute Jump and the Saturday evening Musical Extravaganza, was a real treat, a memory to be treasured for a long time to come.  The whole weekend was rounded off by a wonderful Songs of Praise followed by yet more scones!

Show Stoppers!

Which musicals do these arrangements represent?  Find the answers by clicking on the link to the Flower Festival 2008 Scrapbook below.

Flower Festivals Photo Gallery                                                            

FLOWER FESTIVAL ANNUAL REPORT 2008

This year’s flower festival theme was Harvest – fruits of the spirit which was appropriate as we combined it with our harvest celebrations in September. The church was filled with lovely and imaginative arrangements created by friends and members of our church family. Mr Bill Cordall’s contribution of a huge number of beautiful dahlias grown in his garden really added the autumnal touch.

Visitors were able to benefit from the new kitchen facilities from where lovely cream teas were served. A Harvest supper was held in the parish hall on the Saturday evening of the festival weekend which was rounded off by a ‘songs of praise’ evensong on the Sunday night.

All of the visitors and participants in the festival were positive in their response – although numbers did appear to be down on previous years. Nevertheless, we were still able to send a donation of £350 to Ghana, representing the ‘after costs’ profit of the festival.

I would like to thank all those who work so hard to make this annual event such a success – the arrangers, the stewards, Alison for her wonderful casseroles and to everyone in church who contributes to making this weekend a positive occasion for All Hallows and Ordsall.

Helen Richards, Flower Festival Co-ordinator

FLOWER FESTIVAL ANNUAL REPORT 2007

June 2006 saw the third annual flower festival held at All Hallows. The theme was ‘Simple Gifts’ and displays depicted a range of Gifts from the abstract such as ‘love’ to the practical like ‘sewing’. The church looked beautiful and was full of appreciative visitors through out the weekend.  Stewards and refreshment specialists carried on the hard work started by the  flower arrangers during the days running up to the festival.

This is a huge undertaking on the part of a significant number of the congregation and despite all the hard work of everyone involved, brings us all together in a shared task and re enforces the  bonds of friendship between  both us as a congregation and us and our visitors. 

Donations were collected to support the diocese of Ho in Ghana.

Plans are currently underway for this year's festival which is to be held later in the year as part of our harvest festival celebrations. Anyone who fancies having a go at the flowers is welcome to come along and join in the fun - we even had a ‘chippy’ lunch on the Friday! Everyone else is invited to get involved in hospitality or stewarding. Please contact Carole Robinson or myself if you can help in any way.

Helen Richards