Apologies for taking so long to update about our party!

On June the 26th we had our annual party in Surrey for all our Post Pal families and our volunteers. We requested in advance that people NOT in Surrey do a rain dance on the day to attract the rain elsewhere, and one kind volunteer offered to straighten her hair and go out without an umbrella as that was bound to make it rain in her area! Well it worked and the weather was beautiful!

It was held at our treasurer Jan’s house, and being good trustee’s that we are, we felt it only right to check out the bouncy castle and slide before the children arrived, well it wouldn’t be right not to surely?!

It kicked off with the children eating some sweets from our ‘candy buffet’ (kindly donated by Happy Sweet Shop who do free postage and if you enter the code PPALS129 then you get 10% off and another 10% goes to Post Pals – plug over!) and playing on the bouncy castle. When as many people as possible had arrived (the M25 was holding everyone up and some were coming from as far away as Wales), we started our show. Our wonderful ‘puppet lady’ Wendy had the children laughing – especially Amber (Ashley’s sister) whose giggles could be heard from the other side of the garden!

After the show we all had our BBQ lunch (thanks to Bill for cooking it), and did lots of chatting. After, the kids went back to the bouncy castle and played with the bubble machine too. We then drew our raffle. We had been short on raffle prizes but then had some lovely donations including some beautifully wrapped gifts from Charlotte who couldn’t be with us on the day as she was busy raising £100 for us! Thanks Charlotte!

We then cut our cake which had kindly been donated by Debbie’s Sweet Art, it had a child’s face smiling on a postage stamp.

More chatting then onto the moving section of the day – releasing balloons for all the children we have lost and sadly there were even more than last year. Every single balloon represents a life lost, but a child remembered. They had forget-me-not seeds in and we said the child’s name aloud as we released it.

Izzy with her sister Holly’s balloon.

We all chatted some more then it was home time, with goody bags for the children, chocolates for the ladies, and bulls eye spirit levels for the men (kindly donated by Elekta).

The list of thank you’s is very long and I’m bound to miss someone out, but thank you to my parents for doing a lot of leg work both on the day and in the lead up, to Happiest Sweet Shop, Debbie’s Sweet Art, Jan for letting us take over her house (and for her hard work), to Cat, Dan and Vix for their help setting up, Charlotte for all her prizes so prettily presented – sorry you couldn’t be with us on the day but thank you for raising £300 on the day elsewhere for us (!), to everyone who donated a raffle prize or contributed in anyway, and a BIG thank you to everyone who came along on the day!

Some other photos for you…

Kate W (who does an amazing job of keeping every single child’s page updated) and Courtenay P

Cutting the cake, L-R Viks, Kate “Feedback” W, Vix, Kate “Fundraising” D (and we wonder why people get us confused…!) also showing off our purple wrist bands and Post Pal badges which you can purchase for £1.

Ashley H and Joe (who lost his big brother to Neuroblastoma)

‘Twins’ Izzy and Amber who people kept muddling up (Amber is Ashley H’s sister and Izzy is Holly C’s sister)

There are more photos on Post Pals Facebook.