With a record number of registered households planning to participate in our yard sale this year, we felt it probably was going to be a bumper year in every way and that did indeed prove to the case!
As always, the weather was the biggest stress factor! Having had a dry start to the day, drizzle set in just as we would have been setting up shop outdoors so several participants opted to sell from indoors which then gave them enough time to display their merchandise properly. Others wrestled with tarpaulins strung from linen lines in an attempt to keep stock dry outside. However, by 1.30, the rain had ceased and, as usual, the early-bird customers were already loitering with intent! Miraculously, the rain and strong winds stayed away until the early evening so we should count ourselves lucky!
The variety of merchandise increases every year and it’s wonderful to see how creative so many Colonies residents are – not only in an arty way but also in a commercial way! The vendor with the highest takings this year was Louisa of Colville Place who is a hand-weaver and who sold beautiful tapestry cushions and hand-made textiles. If there were a prize for cleverest idea to earn a bob, it would have to go to Maisie of Avondale Place who, spotting a gap in the market for children’s entertainment (no face painter this year, sadly), charged for a hold and stroke of her pet rabbit, Dotty! I can see that Maisie may need to patent her idea before lots of us jump on the bandwagon with our own pets next year!
Davidson’s Mains Junior Pipe Band were in excellent form and entertained all who were drawn to the east end of the Colonies by their music. They were delighted with and very grateful for all the donations in response to their playing and fund-raising stall and made the most of the opportunity which we offer them by raising over £350. Let’s hope that in 2014 the footbridge will eventually be open again so that strollers on the Rocheid Path will venture into the Colonies again.
Our Colonies Cakes shop had to operate indoors but this didn’t deter the keen customers! All stock had been sold by 4.15 and the proceeds amounted to £131. Thank you very much to Dorothy for co-ordinating and selling and offering her house for that purpose. Many thanks to everyone who contributed their own produce. Our other community stall was the tombola, run by Tom (!) and Morag. Again, we are very grateful to them and to everyone who donated prizes, enabling all the takings of £120 to be donated to SCRA.
The appetite for cakes proved to be, as ever, insatiable so anyone who sold cakes alongside other merchandise did very well! Other star performers sold the highly sought after Colonies books (now out of print), rhubarb freshly picked from the allotment, plants (our usual big plant sale was sorely missed this year) and greetings cards hand-made from individual photos.
So, here are the results:
Total turnover: £2834.68 of which the donations to SCRA amount to a wonderful £676.20 and another £653 was raised for other charities.
Thank you to everyone who contributed in any way at all to help make our 2013 yard sale such a big success.