Ladies Circle

Harpenden Circle ’s £18,000 Christmas gift to local charities

Harpenden Circle’s annual fundraising event, the Christmas Gift and Craft Fair, held over the 28^th & 29^th November raised a record-breaking £18,000 for charity.

Local Hertfordshire charities Harpenden MENCAP and St Albans Home-Start , as well as CRY (Cardiac Risk in the Young) and The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation will all benefit from the success of the event, each receiving a share of the monies raised.

The event, now in its 34^th year, boasts over 50 stallholders who travel across the UK to attend the event.

This year the Gift and Craft Fair was visited by over 3,000 local people, including the Mayor, National President of Ladies’ Circle Lynda Wieland and National Treasurer Chris Goodacre.

The event, organised by Harpenden Circle and assisted by Round Table and Tangent, benefited from local sponsorship and increased local publicity.

Chair of The Gift Fair committee, Sally Rowe was thrilled with the success of the event:

"It is wonderful to know that so many local people will benefit from our Gift Fair. This event has become a much anticipated, community event and this year the pressure was on to try and beat the record-breaking £14,000 we raised in 2007. We have a dedicated Gift Fair committee who work for a whole year behind the scenes, liaising with stallholders, organising our Fair-trade Café, sorting the lay-out and publicising the event. This year we were very fortunate to gain sponsorship from a number of sources including our local Waitrose, who allowed us to promote the event around the store."

"One of the benefits of being such a large club is that we were able to publicise The Gift and Craft Fair by dividing into teams and knocking on local residents' doors, selling programmes and raising awareness in the run up to the event. In addition we produced bright red publicity banners and placed them in strategic places on the approach roads into Harpenden, as well as gaining coverage in both the local press and schools newsletters."

For more information about Harpenden Circle’s annual Christmas Gift and Craft Fair, please contact harpendencircle.co.uk