Halloween Party Surprise

I had the pleasure yesterday of helping out at the Springfield CommunityAssociation’s children’s Halloween Party.

After getting on for two decades of Summer Fairs, and fundraisers at Easter, Halloween and Christmas, for Woodlawn School it seemed a pity to let the skills I’ve learned go to waste.

However when I got there the organiser said

“Can you look after the craft table?”

Gulp.

Raffles and tombolas and other ways of parting people from their money I can do.

A children’s craft table!!!

Completely outside my experience…

However there was loads of stuff in the cupboard, a pile of orange and green painted paper plates and stencils of witches, bats and ghosties.  So I set to cutting them and black cats out on black or green coloured card, paper or felt.  I drew them onto more paper so children could cut them out for themselves.  Then poured pva glue into three jars with three brushes each and stood back.

I have to say I had a delightful time.

The children were all beautifully behaved and wonderfully creative.  They happily stuck a witch, ghost, cat or bat to a plate, added googly eyes and tiny pompoms, sticky jewels, coloured pipe cleaners, ribbon etc onto them.

The parents were all grateful for a pleasant event, and were quite creative too.

At the end of the event I helped clear everything away, and it was so nice to just put things in a cupboard and know I wasn’t going to be the one that had to sort it out later (I’ve spent so much time in Woodlawn’s PTA cupboard I’m have some of my ashes put there).

It was also nice not to be in charge.

Whenever anyone asked my answer was “I don’t know, ask Ricky.”

All the fun and none of the anxiety of responsibility.