In these continued uncertain times we find ourselves in once again almost everything we had planned for 2021 didn’t happen but what did happen was still magical. ..
art by Heidi Rhodes
We returned with our popular online fairs for Easter, Summer – a special held on the new Tresstle online platform, Halloween and Christmas. We’ve welcomed such a talented selection of makers at each of these – including many of our regulars and some new who couldn’t usually make our in person fairs. Thousands of viewers have joined in fair and we’ve even had messages from customers across the world.
We also expended our creatives directory to bigger than ever before and brought you Makers Monday blog interviews and Friday Favs weekly to highlight many of our talented makers.
Then on 5th December we returned in person for our first event in 2 years. The Christmas craft fair was held in aid of St Barnabas House at Worthing Charmandean. Although we had to adapt the fair with less stalls and not our usual full range of entertainment and guests it was still a wonderful day and great to see so many of your faces again. Worthing Mayor and town crier opened the fair and visitors braved the cold to queue and get inside. 52 amazing stall holders joined us plus The Sussex Ghostbusters, Face Painting, home baked treats and St Barnabas stalls and raffle. The total raised for St Barnabas is in for our ‘So This is Christmas’ fair Worthing.
We hope you enjoyed the day and we are very pleased to say the fair raised £3,517.67 for St Barnabas! This is our best ever total and they are extremely pleased with the amount raised and would like to pass on their thanks to you. This takes our total raised for St Barnabas through these fairs since Dec 2015 to £25,943.17 which we are incredibly proud of – it is already helping make a difference in the hospice. Thank you to our fab sponsors – Aspire Residential, Alexander Jewellers and Marshalls Carpets for helping make the event possible.
Although this once again has been a hugely challenging year we have enjoyed connecting with more of you than ever before and we have plans to make this connection continue in 2022.
2021 may not have been a good year but we have filled it with love for handmade and small businesses – and that is certainly one positive we can take away from these times.