Carol Singing in Davenham Village

Around the tree in Davenham Village with accompaniment by school bands. Just turn up from 5:30pm to start at 6:00pm . Refreshments available. Pub afterwards.

PROPOSED SCHEDULE – DAVENHAM CHRISTMAS LIGHT SWITCH-ON EVENT

After speaking to Jo Curry and Mary Clewes, it was decided that the best place for the children and band would be around the tree.  Children playing instruments got jostled by the crowd congregating at the Bull’s head last year – which isn’t great when you are playing an instrument.

Please find below event plan for Thursday 1^st December 2016:

17.00 ish – Councillors arrive on-site and cordon off the area around the Christmas Tree and ask members of the public to leave this area clear for the school children/Davenham Players.  Set-up PA SYSTEM/staging requirements.

17:30 – Riverside Organics arrive & set up burger stall at side of Ernest Ashley (Davenham Parish Council to be here to supervise set-up and hand out hymn sheets).

17:30-45 – school band arrives & sets own stools etc around the tree area.  Davenham Players also to arrive

17:55 road closed as per traffic management company map

18:00 – Primary school children (lantern parade) arrives at location & gathers around the tree (supervised by School staff)

18:05 to 18:10 – crowd gathers around tree & in road to sing carol (TBA) & countdown to switch on

18:15 – light switch on with another couple of carols (TBA) .  Band then plays (TBA) 

(DPC to hand out refreshments to children taking part) – We could do with a small table to set up drinks beforehand as it was quite hard dishing out straws with cold hands last year.

18:30ish – Primary school children collected by parents

18:15 to 18:55 – crowd mingles in area attending local shops, burger stall & pubs.

18:55 – road reopens for normal service

Any amendments please let me know ASAP.

The event this year will be similar to last year and will include,  Davenham Wind Band, Children’s Lantern Parade, carol singing and local Organic Burgers (and I believe we also may have waffles on sale too), some local shops will be staying open late (so please support them where you can), the Bulls Head, Oddfellows  will be on hand with mulled wine and mince pies and St Wilfrid’s Church will be serving tea and coffee for a small donation.

This year the children in the lantern parade/choir/wind band will be situated around/near to the Christmas Tree as last year a few of the children were accidentally getting a bit jostled by the crowds around them which isn’t great when you have a trumpet to play.  We will cordon this area off earlier in the evening so please bear this in mind when you arrive that we need to keep this area free.

Davenham Players have kindly offered to join us this year to help with the carol singing, instead of Katie on the mega-phone even though she did a grand job!.  While on the subject of mega phones, hopefully ours will be ditched this year in favour of a PA system kindly lent to us by Davenham Primary School.

We will be closing the road again for approximately 1 hour from 6pm.  This is primarily to keep our children/everyone safe near our busy road during rush hour and to allow us all to enjoy the event a bit more freely.  Amberon will be taking care of the traffic management again for us and we will also have Police  and St John’s Ambulance in attendance.

Last but by no means least, the lights this year will be switched-on by Jan Lambert and Jan Johnson.  These ladies were instrumental in setting up, organising and designing the fantastic Mosaic project at Davenham Players Theatre and just basically getting the whole village involved.  We thought it was a nice way to say a huge ‘thank you’ to them on behalf of the whole village.

I think that is everything covered so let’s hope for fine weather!  Any queries, please feel free to get in touch.

Kind regards

Vicky Stock

Clerk to Davenham Parish Council

Tel: 07443 579 057