Community Christmas Party

It is well documented that many older people suffer from isolation due to lack of local family or other support to allow them to maintain independence in their later years. This is particularly prevalent during the winter months when the weather is colder and even going to local shops can become difficult for some, meaning they potentially go days or weeks on end without any contact from another person.

Every year, Trinity hosts a Party in early December, opening our doors to older people from care homes, neighbourhood care groups, and other local community groups to help spread some joy at what can often be a difficult time, and ensuring those who are isolated know they are not forgotten.

Aims

The aim of this annual party is to share Christmas cheer with the local older community, offering them the opportunity to escape their isolation for a wonderful evening of company and entertainment.

Secondary to this is to provide Trinity School students with the opportunity and experience to give back to the local community while also improving their own confidence.

The Party also serves to enhance the School’s relations with the local care homes and groups. They rely on Trinity to provide volunteers throughout the year, and the Party allows the School to thank the key points of contact from those organisations for their support of our programmes, thus ensuring continued strong relations going forward.

The party relies heavily on support from the School Community; parents, staff and students, so we also aim to keep financial costs to a minimum; no more than £5 per guest.

The immediate beneficiaries are the residents from the care homes and neighbourhood care groups, with the students discovering the importance of selfless acts through their support.

The key factor for success in this project is the whole school community coming together. Without the 150 students, 30 staff and 30 parents all pulling together to help run the evening, it would just not be possible to run an event of this scale.

Background

The Christmas Party has been a key element of the Trinity calendar for at least 15 years; it has been a fixture of the Trinity School year for a long time.

Resources

Trinity School provide this party free of charge to all local older residents who wish to attend through their care home or neighbourhood care group.

The party is held in the main school hall, with other locations across the school being used as e.g. cloakroom or ‘green room’ for students. School minibuses are used to collect residents of care homes, and Holroyd Howe (school caterers) support the event through the donation of hot and soft drinks for guests.

The party is overseen by the Head of Community Action, Claire Burrage, with assistance from students, staff and parents. Both teaching and non-teaching staff are involved in the event on the day, volunteering their time to collect guests from their homes and bring them to the event, as well as helping during the party, supervising students and chatting to guests. Around 20 staff help at the event.

Additionally, around 40 parents offer to support the event through a range of activities:
- Donating raffle prizes
- Donating their time to drive local residents who are unable to get to the party otherwise, or get onto minibuses
- Donating party food

There is a financial cost to the School of producing this event, which covers the cost of decorating the School Hall and tables for the party, party food and catering staff to serve teas and coffees. The total cost in 2019 was approximately £600, costing a little over £4 per guest.

Impact

In 2019, approximately 140 guests attended the event. The majority of these are local older residents, with a total of around ten being carers and organisation representatives.

While the impact of this event is not particularly quantifiable, we do receive feedback from many local residents after the event, who let us know what a wonderful evening they’ve had and how much they appreciate us reaching out to them. Some of this feedback is listed below.

“Thank you very much for your Christmas Party, which we really enjoyed.
Congratulations to all the pupil helpers, very impressed with their attitude, politeness and the way they dealt with everyone. They are a credit to the school and their parents.
Congratulations also to all involved in the organisation of the evening, very well done.”

“Thank you for all your hard work last night. Our clients really enjoyed themselves. As usual, the pupils’ talents were amazing.

The lady who drove us was so considerate and so helpful. They really appreciated her help.”

“Just a brief note of thanks for arranging the Trinity Party night for all attendees.

It’s obviously quite a task to sort out invitations for all the groups of people that were there on Monday evening.

Our admiration goes to everyone involved, it was a great evening, interesting entertainment for all, splendid band and choir, a brief part of Joseph and his coat of many colours, {one of my favourite parts of the evening} Bingo Raffle, Teas, the meeting together for everyone was a Joy.

The boys and girls put on an amazing night of entertainment, and the younger ones looking after every table were all so charming and helpful.”

Pupil Involvement

Approximately 150 students take part in the evening.

Around half of these are 10-12 years old; these students are responsible for looking after our guests on the evening, helping them with collecting prizes and bringing teas/coffees to the table.

Twenty of the students are our sixth formers, who come along to help the younger students. They welcome guests to the event, manage the cloakroom and help younger students with drinks, clearing tables etc. This group is a mixture of boys and girls.

The remainder are a range of all year groups who come along to entertain the guests. This year it included the sixth form choir, the Band, and a musical performance from the cast of Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat.

Frequency

This event takes place once a year in December.