Fly the bunting high - the church fete

My fellow britwriters have covered many of the essential signs of a British summer already - Wimbledon, the seaside, steam fairs, celebrating the solstice, rain - but I have one more to add to the collage - village and church fetes!

These are community-run fund-raising days, and a chance for everyone to get together and have fun in the sun (or while huddling in tents and under umrellas, depending on the weather) Church fetes are normally raising money for the church buildings, and village fetes may be fund-raising for a village hall, the local Brownie and Scout groups, or any other local or larger charity that’s been agreed on.

(I’ll leave school fetes, fairs and sportsdays to someone with more recent experience.)

Recipie for a church or village fete.

A medium-hot day is preferred, but temperature is not essential. With enough community spirit, your fete will rise, even in the rain.

Basic components:

- Space (outdoors preferred, but if you can’t get it, a church or village hall will also work)
- Sound system
- Marquees
- Folding tables
- Banners, posters, and signs
- Bunting to taste.

Begin the day early with a generous serving of volunteers. Mix well with the basic ingredients to create your temporary fairground. Allow approximately four hours for this stage of the process.

Add at least one and preferably more element from each of the following categories:

Stalls, selling things donated by members of the church/village .

• Cake stall - baked goods by the slice, or in the round from the best cooks- an essential component.
• Plant stall - houseplants and bedding plants from the green fingered.
• Gifts - candles, jewelry, cards, bath bombs, wood carvings, from the craftily inclined.
• Book stall - books, dvds, videos, cds, records etc
• Bric-a-brac or white-elephant stall selling random *stuff* - ornaments, jewellery, pictures, toys, if there’s not a separate toy stall. (NB - *not* clothes; this isn’t a jumble sale, after all!)

Games of chance.

• The Raffle - an essential. It’s not a proper fete unless you’re presented with a table mounded with prizes and the opportunity to buy a strip of tickets when you arrive. You will need the sound system for the raffle calling at the end of the day, as well as the interim entertainment.
• Tombola - another essential. Sometimes split into adult (mostly alcoholic) and children’ (mostly sweets) but the principle is the same. The stall will be filled with bottles and jars, each with a numbered ticket taped to them. The punter picks from the bucket of folded tickets, and if the numbers match, they have themselves a prize. Most of the time numbers ending in 5 or 0 are the winners
• Wheel of fortune - like the tv show, but on a domestic scale.
• Lucky dip - everyone gets a prize from the barrel full of sawdust or straw, but some of them are penny sweets, and some of them are pound coins.
• Key dip - pick a key from the bucket and if it unlocks any of the locks on the test bar, you win a prize.
• String pull - pick a string, and pull - if it’s tied to a prize, you win.

Games of skill.

• Whack-a-rat - home made, with a length of drainpipe, and rats made out of newspaper stuffed tights, with something heavy at the nose. The volunteer drops the rat down the drainpipe, and the punter takes a swing with a bat or stick, with a prize for anyone who can pin a rat on the base-board.
• Electric buzz - manouvering a metal ring along a bendy wire course without touching the wire and completeing the ‘buzz’ circuit.
• Coconut shy - some would argue this should be in with the games of chance, but that’s just sour grapes ;p.
• Beat-the-goalie - does what it says on the tin - the punter normally gets three attempts to get the ball in the net, like a penalty kick in football (soccer for the Americans).
• Hoop toss - throw your hoop over the prize and it’s yours
• Horseshoes - toss your horseshoe around a prize, or a prize-representing-stake and it’s yours
• Beanbag toss - land your palm-sized beanbag on the prize spots to win
• Skittles - like ten pin bowling, but not (this one’s a whole entry’s worth on it’s own.)
• Guess the weight of the X / number of Y in the Z (weight of the cake / sweets in the jar etc)

Stuff for the kids.

• Facepainting
• Balloon modelling
• Bouncy castles
• Space hoppers
• Clowns
• Farm-based petting ‘zoo’
• Adults in the stocks (I remember this from school fetes, when being able to hurl sopping wet sponges at teachers was a guaranteed success as a fund raiser.)

Food, and drink.

• The tea tent is essential - tea, squash, and scones with cream and jam at a minimum, a wider range of cakes, drinks, and sandwiches if you can muster enough volunteers willing to cook and serve it all.
• Beer tent
• BBQ
• Hog roast
• Icecream
• Stawberries and cream

(getting a hot dog van or similar to show up is clearly *cheating*. Perfectly appropriate for a fairground, or showground, but not really cricket for the amateur-run fete. Similarly, candy-floss is an option, but is more traditional for a fairground or carnival. )

Entertainment

• bands
• choirs
• Morris dancers
• Maypole dancers
• clowns
• children’s races (egg and spoon, three-legged, etc)
• ‘cute’ animal show classes (anything more serious than ‘dog most like owner‘ or ‘fancy dress’ is heading towards village show territory, which is a different manner of thing entirely)
• fancy dress parade
• martial arts display
• gym club display

A harmonious mix from the lists above will ensure that there’s something for everyone, and that your fete will fill the temporary fairground base well. Allow time for the stalls and games to set before presenting your fete to the appreciative audience waiting at the gates.

As a final garnish, you may wish to add a local celebrity to declare the fete officially open.