'26 Blofield Summer Fayre

2026 Summer Fayre

A massive thank you to everyone who took part in the Blofield Summer Fayre 10 - 2 on Saturday 18th July. What a wonderful day!! The Village Voice and New Horizon Choir performed in the Margaret Harker Hall on the stage and had a captive audience! 5 Arts and Craft stalls were positioned around the edge of the room, and the hall was transformed into a Pop Up Cafe with a lovely selection of cakes and bakes, fresh strawberries & watermelon.  We have new young volunteer Lizzie joining us, and she says she has never made so many cups of tea before! The cakes sold out! Guess the Weight of the Cake Cake was a beautiful pink extravaganza with MHH in icing on the top, and Val, Maria and Cliff were just able to keep up with serving. 

The Raffle table was very busy - you will have seen Leanne and Zoe walking around selling tickets and our lovely painted sign showing how much we have raised - thank you Wednesday PM Arts & Craft Club for helping with this! (Trinny & Laura). Thank you so much to all the prize donors, cake bakers and folks who attended too!  The PTA sold preloved school uniform, had a rather unique teddy bear dip (fishing for teddy bears with litter pickers), and games.

The weather was cloudy, and cooler than recently (which of course has been burning hot!) and there was even a tiny bit of light rain - this refreshing change. However for the Norwich Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dancing Society they were in their element - wearing kilts and tartan. Used to our beautiful sprung wooden dance floor in the hall, they battled the concrete to show us some lovely dances. The tennis players sent a message saying how much they were enjoying hearing the music while they play!

The Beez Kneez bouncy castles were fun, run by a Local who used to attend Blofield Primary and has lots of fond memories. Playchurch, Preschool and the Parish Council all had spots by the Playpark, the Scouts offered a delicious BBQ, (its always really good - they put the effort in to source the best rolls from Ketts Bakery and great meat from Hazels) , Tombola, Glitter tattoos and games, and a visiting facepainter created lovely butterflies on the children's faces.  The Crockery Smash was here for the first time - and he hopes to be back again!  The Gaming Station has a slow start but filled up as the day went on  - a chance for children to try out and enjoy different games before committing their pocket money to just one. The Ice Cream Van and Football Club bar were open and got busier about 1pm.

We got to use our brand new zooped up "Array System Speaker" PA system out on the grass - its powerful enough to provide the sound for the stage and dancing, but we still need to get a bit more up to date to be able to play music successfully between PA announcements!!! This comes down to needing to learn how to use tech - perhaps a future workshop at the hall - as there were MANY adults who weren't really sure how to stream using bluetooth from a device.....Caroline from Dancing Dimensions saved the day with her epic playlist and we were away!!

We were mindful with our decorations - to avoid single use plastic if possible - we have gifted the plastic bunting onto the Scouts for them to use at their jamboree, the tall bamboo poles swaying so beautifully in the breeze were donated to us and are being reused again. We borrowed the lovely red, white and blue cloth bunting in the hall and the tables all had cotton tablecloths, a selection of garden flowers in our collection of little vases.  So recycling, sustainability, cost and impact on the environment are very much on our mind.  Signage was made from cardboard boxes and recycled wood, and we had a grant to pay for art materials for the signs.

The day continued after the Summer Fayre - as we pushed back tables and got ready for the Summer Ceilidh - it was free entry so we expected a crowd - due to the football suddenly happening at the same time (because we had of course expected to be in the finals, not the play offs! ha ha) numbers were about 40 instead of the expected 80+  (we were packed to the rafters in November for the previously ceilidh with tickets sold our at 125).  The music from YareFolk was beautiful and great to dance to. A spacious dancefloor meant we all kept dancing!  Pizza was served from the kitchen (thank you Maria and Cliff), a bar set up with a LOT of Wherry, wine and soft drinks kept us going (thank you Martin & Phil) and a great night was had! It was so lovely to come together as a village. The WHOLE purpose of these events is Community Inclusion - to gather, enjoy time together and the fundraising comes from this. We are delighted to have a raised a really good sum of money - still working it out!

Finally we would like to thank R C Snellings Trust who contributed £1000 to our equipment which will support future events as well as this one. The majority of this money went on the new sound system, but also High Viz jackets,  Pins & hazard tape, and other items to support the event.