This year’s Cranbrook Apple Fair sowed the seeds of success for a host of CSPA activities; from a busy stall in the High Street selling our own Cranbrook School Apple Juice to a special evening with Olympic silver medallist Ruaridh McConnochie. CSPA chair Henrietta King recounts how the impressive efforts of volunteers helped to raise more than £1,000.
Wow – what a day (and evening) and what a fantastic contribution from everyone who helped to get our new school year fund-raising efforts off to such an excellent start.
This year’s Apple Fair events were a glorious success. I want to thank all of you who helped out or who made donations to the raffle, and, of course, all those who came to support us in such strong numbers.
Core values . . . Henrietta in fund-raising mode!
Our stall at the Apple Fair did very well, with raffle tickets selling steadily during the day and at the evening event too. We had lots of keen children (and adults) who guessed how many apples were in Georgia Read Cutting’s basket of apples (there were 122), with two lucky winners at the fair and one in the evening.
Christmas puddings and CSPA merchandise were also on the stall and we sold quite a few of both.
From puddings to pens . . . assorted goodies on the CSPA stall helped to tempt the crowds.
Our special evening presentation and Q&A with Old Cranbrookian Ruaridh McConnochie kept up the tempo as he detailed his amazing journey from Cranbrook School pupil to Olympic silver medallist as part of the GB Rugby 7s team.
What an achievement. Ruaridh shows off his Olympic silver medal.
Ruaridh was very inspirational and impressive. It was a fantastic event, and really interesting to hear about his career so far and his experience of the Rio Olympics. David Leckie did a great job orchestrating the proceedings.
The evening also ensured that the CSPA could sell more raffle tickets, thanks to our lovely students who helped out, along with more bottles of apple juice. And I can’t mention those without acknowledging Emma Dear and her inspired idea to organise our very own Cranbrook School Apple Juice, with a team of mums.
Cranbrook mums show off their rich pickings which made 500 bottles of apple juice.
Hazel Matthews’ idea to team pick from Hannah Miles-Watson’s orchard meant that we ended up with beautifully presented bottles of Cranbrook School Apple Juice (on sale here!), decorated with Y12 student Isobel Jacques’ lovely artwork, thanks to Emma Jordan!
Don’t bottle out . . . get your apple juice order in.
The enthusiasm and energy was such that 500 bottles were produced! What a team effort!
We sold around 200 bottles – which meant we virtually covered our costs – and have 300 bottles left to sell at the Christmas Fair and other events as the juice lasts up to 3 years.
All in all a brilliant result!
Another thank you must go to Emma-Louise Cubitt who very kindly took photos both during the day and in the evening.
This year’s Apple Fair hit the high notes . . . with help from Cranbrook School’s excellent jazz band.
And as an aside, I also want to praise our unsung heroes who man the Second Hand Uniform Shop. I am hugely impressed by Himali Peiris, Hazel Matthews and their team in running the shop, which apparently has had queues of people waiting outside and has been ringing up healthy takings.
That is all profit and a huge contribution to our funds. Very well done and thank you to all of you.
I cannot stress enough how grateful I am for the help and enthusiasm given by all our volunteers. We clearly have a great team on board!
Thank you
Henrietta