Christmas Tree Festival- Update 3 (On Show)

Tree decorating taking place.

On Monday afternoon of this week Bob and myself took the bicycle wheel Christmas Tree down to St. Wulfram's Church to be placed as part of the tree festival, greeted by volunteers and shown out position and nicely situated next to a well organised electric point for our lighting.

After about 2 hours the tree was dressed and complete and we could admire the final display which had some lovely comments from other exhibitors and volunteers associated with the church.

Tuesday saw the official switch on after a candle light procession from the Market Place and a blessing from Fr Stuart Cradduck. 

The tree festival and ice rink is now open to all at the following times with huge numbers expected at the weekend to coincide with the town's Christmas celebrations. 
If you can do get down to see our group's tree and the other 104 others at the following times.
Thusday 10am- 8pm
Friday 10am- 9pm
Saturday 10am- 9pm (Including local craft and produce market)
Sunday 11am- 4pm (Including town's Christmas activities and celebrations)

A final word of thanks to those of you that had donated, help construct and transport the items to the festival.

P.S. There's talk of another happening next year, so thinking caps on!!!

The completed tree

South side

North side

Christmas Tree Festival- Update 2 (Setting Up & Weeks Events)

Another update with regards our bicycle wheel tree at St Wulfram's Church, Grantham. I have heard from Fr Stuart Cradduck (Rector - St Wulfram's) with regards to timings on setting up the tree, you may remember I originally suggest that the Monday 23 November evening would be a good time, I was going by the church's website calendar which Fr Stuart has recently let me know that there was an error and that Monday's timings would be 9am- 5pm. With this in mind I am suggesting that the tree installation could be as follows: From 2:30pm, Monday 23 November at St Wulfram's Church.
This would give us plenty of time to set up the tree as it will need to be erected and decorated.
If you can help out during this time it would be great to hear from you.

The Christmas Tree Festival will be taking place from the Tuesday 23 November through to the Sunday 29 November, as well as the trees from over a hundred individuals, businesses and community groups there will be an opportunity to skate on the indoor rink in the church, attend a local craft and produce market on the Saturday and see a preview of the trees all lit up on the Tuesday evening with an opportunity to attend a Sip and Slip preview evening.

Full details and timings and ticketing website of the weeks events can be found here.

Christmas Tree Festival- Update

As mentioned in my last post Wayne had delivered some scrap gear sprockets he had from his cycle repair business after repair jobs. I've now got these split down and cleaned up and I'll think you'll agree the different sizes and circular shapes will make interesting "baubles" for the tree.

Please do let me if you can help out next weekend on the pre-build and preparation on or either the Saturday and Sunday, full details given in the blog post, which can be viewed here. And we're still on the look out for any items you could lend for a few weeks for the project.

For those that have been in touch many thanks and for the offer of various items and hep.

I'll also get in touch with the organisers next week to confirm when the installation can take place before the event on 24- 29 November.

Ride Leader Training Programme

Dan Robertson (East Midlands volunteer co-ordinator) has been in touch this afternoon to let me know of a new programme of ride leader training and has asked me to pass the following information.

The first session will be taking place in Nottingham on 26 November, this will be a level 2 course so it qualifies you to take rides on car fee routes and quiet roads, Dan is looking to run a level 3 course the following week (date tbd) which would allow you to deliver rides on more challenging roads and take rides through junctions.
The course will be based at Queens Walk Community Centre, Nottingham and will be a whole day course led be Dave Clasby and Jon Moody.

If you are interested in this course or would like to put forward your interest to Dan for information on following course then please do get in touch with Dan.

November Workdays (shop)

Something a bit different for November, some of you may have seen locally news of St. Wulframs Church, Grantham organising a Christmas Tree Festival, a first for Grantham and they was calling for local business, schools, groups to submit a tree for the festival on Tuesday 24- Sunday 29 November.
I had been mulling over this event for a few weeks to come up with an idea for some kind of tree by us, visiting the church last Friday I explained what I wanted to do and was given a form to fill and hastily return the next day to the organiser, so with this now in place now to get things rolling.

The idea I had seen on the internet after searching a number of quotes, the image above gives the best idea of explaining it, but will only be the top 3 lays, 6 wheels. So the hunt was on for 6 old wheels, cycling past Cycle Sport on London Road thinking I wonder and 5 minutes later I come out with 6 old front wheels. Doing a quick mock up the tree shape would stand around 4.5ft tall.

So now for the different bit, on Saturday 14 November and Sunday 15 November I will be making a start and hoping to do a pre build between the hours of 10:00- 14:00, so I am hoping you can pop round sometime between these hours on either or both days for whatever time you can spare, be it 1, 2, 3 or 4 hours. There will be plenty to do and make and to put forward any ideas you might have too.

I'm also on the lookout to borrow some various items, the church has said we can have lighting on the tree, I am thinking some white lights round the edge would give the distinctive tree/triangle shape. So things I am currently thinking of if any of you are happy to lend to the project for a few weeks are the following:

Christmas lighting (prefer white/non colour lighting)
Old inner tubes*
Old wheel reflectors*
plus anything else you can think off.
(*items you would be happy to get rid of and scrap as maybe cut up/screwed etc.)

Wayne has given some old gear sprockets which we could use as bauble type features to hang from the tree and I have found some instructions of how to make little stars out of old bike chain and Wayne to has given some of these, both scrap from his business.

What next, if you could let me know if your able to come round on 14 and/or 15 November to help then would be great along with anything you can lend/hand to this project.

I am waiting to hear back from the organiser as to when we can set up but looking at the churches diary online it looks like Monday 23 November 09:00- 20:00 is given as well as Tuesday 24 November 09:00- 15:00. So I'm thinking maybe a Monday evening would suit.