Beechy and Jules: charity events at the Elms, Retford: 2017 Beechy's 'Roaring Twenties' night

Saturday 18 March 2017

In aid of St Giles School

Amount raised: £665

Total to date: £36308

Whilst mulling over themes for fancy dress we were thinking flappers and gangsters, Great Gatsby and Downton Abbey, monocles and feathers, cloche hats and fedoras - so it had to be the Roaring Twenties!

To follow this line of thought we needed something suitably sophisticated for table centres and after a little brain storming we came up with just the thing - ping pong balls!

We were off...

So in Manchester the ping pong balls were given make overs to transform them into chic little heads. The ladies had bobbed and cropped hair and were decorated with sparkly headbands, feathers and flowers with little heart shaped bead lips. The men looked slightly manic with their centre partings, googly eyes and monocles.

Stage one complete.

Meanwhile over in Retford Julie was preparing for stage 2.

Or possibly Treacle and various others were pre-preparing for stage 2 by drinking lots of wine so that we could have the empty bottles!

So as glue was being picked off fingers and sequins were being picked up from the floor in Manchester Julie was applying the first coats of black and white paint to the donated bottles.

The heads were packaged into a shoe box and posted to Retford. Luckily they all arrived intact and were ready to be glued by Jules to the bottle necks...

Julie had a great time in her new 'She Shack' craft shed primping and blinging and adding more beads, feathers and sequins. The men had fancy collars and cravats with little bow ties - and even little tiny handkerchiefs sticking out of their top pockets! They looked brilliant.

And as a final touch she made top hats for them to stand on to give a bit of height to the tables. Fantastic!

As usual Julie and Ian went down the day before to prepare the room - and Beechy was made up as he was able to watch the horse racing while they were setting up the tables!...

On the Saturday morning balloons were blown up, beads were scattered and bows were made - with a bit of last minute help from Aunt Margaret and her friend Heather.

Then we were ready to go!...

It was a fairly simple decoration in the foyer this time - bottle figures on top hats with beads, candles, balloons and posh cocktail glasses - all lit with sparkly disco lights.

Quite minimalist but very sophisticated and effective!

We were ready to party.

Some great costumes with lots of feathers, cigarette holders, beads and braces. And a few gangsters with scary looking eyebrows (which of course ended up all over the place later) and guns - either blow up or pinched from their children!

Our meal was chicken skewer or cottage pie followed by brownie or berry crumble. Very nice.

Beechy announced a couple of presentations - firstly flowers to Pauline our lovely lady from St Giles who had recently retired. Such a caring and thoughtful lady who always put the children first and always helped us in our efforts for the school.

And secondly small presents for Sam and Graeme who were leaving the Elms after running it for so many years.

We wanted to say a huge thank you for looking after us so well and being so accommodating to all our requests no matter how bizarre or last minute!

Beechy also explained that we still had funds ready to put towards the inclusive roundabout for Kings Park.This money had been raised at our last event and greatly added to by the sky dive done by Katy, Laura, Tracy and James - we are still waiting for a progress report from the council but will update as soon as we know.

RAG4E had taken up the cause for the roundabout after seeing Tracy's Facebook post about Bradley's disappointment at not being able to ride on anything at the park and they had been given donations and raised some money through charity events of their own. As RAG4E had done such a sterling job it means that we will have some money left over after we put the balance of around £3000 to their total for the roundabout.

Any extra funds will go straight back to St Giles to help with their project to give every student an iPad - a great way to encourage them.

Presentations and explanations done we then chivvied everyone together for a group photo - easier said than done!...