A huge thank you to everyone who came along and helped launch the Old Library, Eastville on the 10th September – we have officially launched our brand new 100% run volunteer hub for the South Lockleaze, Purdown & Eastville Neighbourhood.

With over 350 faces coming through the door and an amazing team of hardworking volunteers on the day, we managed to raise a whopping £1100 towards the space, gained a lot of new interest in the project, and had a fantastic day meeting neighbours, families and making new friends.

Firstly, we want to say a massive thank you to all of the volunteers who helped prepare for the day, get set up, and take on roles throughout the afternoon. With weeks of planning, arranging for food and deliveries, getting musicians on board, setting up equipment, baking cakes, donating time and energy, bringing along gazebos, delivering leaflets and getting the word out, spending time behind the cafe counter, washing up, serving food, painting faces and generally ensuring the event ran smoothly! What a really hugely fantastic bunch of people you all are!!

Secondly, a massive thank you to all of those who donated prizes for the raffle and Throw-A-Lightbulb – Wai Yee Hon Supermarket, Magic Scissors, Shotgun Barbers, Emma Bee, Hazel Sutton, Ben Costigan, Tesco, Zycko, Vanessa, Emily & David Shimell and Eva Blake.

As you may have noticed, we managed to use up the batch of sleepers that have been sitting there in the back garden for a while now, to create a wonderful rustic stage, that welcomed the great group of musicians who kindly donated their time and talents to keep us entertained. Thanks to Chandra Moon, The Sweet Spokes, Lewis Rogers, Phil Cooper and Simon (with his Theramin!) – the comments we’ve had about you all have been fantastic, and we would love to invite you back next time for bigger and better things! Everyone, do go and check out their webpages & Facebook pages, and continue to support our generous local musicians!

We hope you enjoyed the Onion Jousting and well done to all our jousters big and small! Thanks to Richard for being a fantastic compare on the day and everyone who got involved in this game… i’m hoping it to be the start of many more tournaments to come, so you best start practising… you’ve got everything you need right in your kitchen (I think the back turning was a pretty good tactic).

What a fantastic array of food we had available on the day! We hope you enjoyed the BBQ and delicious samosas from Sheilah, all the wonderful salads, the tasty pakoras and cakes, and the freshly baked rolls that came along half an hour before you all started turning up – direct from the bakery! A few of the volunteers even managed to finish up the very last of the sausages at about 10 o’clock that evening after the few hours of clearing, tidying & sorting …. and a curry even appeared for extra measures!

David & Vanessa (Emily’s parents) alongside Tom & Emma did a fantastic job of manning Throw-a-Lightbulb, and we hope everyone didn’t get too competitive – although it’s one of those you “just can’t stop playing”… especially if there’s a bottle of bubbly (or a Peppa Pig space hopper!) up for grabs! Remember your score and see if you can beat it next time?

There’s plenty of your hedgehogs, spiders and weird, wacky creatures taking pride of place on the shelves in the library. Clay modelling seemed to go down super well, as did hazel thumbstick making – do send us a picture of you using yours, we’d love to see (and so would Steve!).

What a fantastic day – I, as are all the volunteers, super proud of what we, you and all of us have managed to achieve. Not even a year ago was the Eastville Library set for closure, and now we’ve launched something we hope will be an even better chapter than the last!

Do come and support the Old Library project now on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday during public opening hours – we’ve tasty coffee and cakes, plenty of books to read, borrow and share, a comfy space to relax, computers and WiFi to use, lots of local history, space to garden and lots of new activities starting up for you to get involved in, so check out our calendar, follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook, sign up to the newsletter (pop us an email at southlockleaze@gmail.com) for now, and we all look forward to seeing you very soon… how’s Christmas looking for you?!

Best wishes everyone and have a great rest of your week,

Emily 🙂