‘The Blooming Great Tea Party Tour in Spennymoor’

June 2014

DurhamGate and Success (North East) worked in partnership with the newly established Spennymoor Marie Curie Fundraising group to organise:

‘The Blooming Great Tea Party Tour in Spennymoor’

This was a creative twist on the usual Marie Curie Blooming Great Tea Party campaign andprovided a great opportunity to bring the community together for a fantastic cause.

DurhamGate, Success (North East)and the Marie Curie Fundraising Group organised the event and were responsible for health and safety, liaison with schools, booking performers, liaising with press and community groups etc.

A plea went out for funding to local businesses and organisations, the response was overwhelming.

Thank you to the sponsors who helped to fund the event:

Stanley Black and Decker£500

Croxdale Citroen£450

All UK Adjusters£100

Thorn Lighting £1000

Conservatory World£150

Councillor Geldard and Lawton£200

Town Council£200

Livin£500

Spennymoor Youth Council£500

Match funding was provided by:

DurhgamGate

Success (North East)

Spennymoor AAP

Cre8

Fox Cub

Marie Curie Spennymoor fundraising team

Andto all other volunteers who gave their time and worked to support a fantastic community event for a really good cause.

Any organisation who provided funding secured the following:

  • Company logo displayed on all marketing material which included: A large banner at Thinford roundabout (seen by over 600,000 people per week), a large banner on the side of the Tea Party Bus and all leaflets and flyers
  • Two seats on the Tea Party Tour Bus(Optional) to enable them to join the tea party

Where the funding went:

Item / Cost
Tea Party Tour
Open Top Bus Hire x 2 days / 450 per day £900
PA System on Bus / 900 per day £1800
Professional dancers-to get the tea party dancing!
Tea party themed stilt walkers
3000 tea pot templates / 100
10 tea pots depicting children’s designs / 400
Game props and prizes / 200
Tea Party (Tea, coffee, cakes, props, publicity etc.) / Approx. £100 per school £1000
Total / 4400
DurhamGate Summer Festival Great Blooming Community Tea Party
Gazebos / £200
Side shows / £650
Table/chair hire / £200
Face painting / £100
Publicity / £500
PA System / £200
Walkabout entertainment / £750
Tea Cups / £350
Total / 2950

As the events were fully funded it meant that 100% of monies raised were donated to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Blooming Great Tea Party Tour in Spennymoor- What did we do?

We hired an open top bus to take the Marie Curie Blooming Great Tea Party on Tour around 10 schools Spennymoor on the 19th and 20th June 2014. The tour incorporated the following aspects:

A Tea Party in every school:

Each school organisedtheir very ownBlooming Great Tea Party in aid of Marie Curie. Schools got creative and came up with ideas to make their tea party blooming great!

Tea Party Bus:

The open top bus arrived at each school tea party and provided 1 hour of fun, games and entertainment. This included music, dance, stilt walkers and tea pot themed games.

The party bus carried a ‘tour team’ which includedSpennymoor Town and Youth Mayor, as well as2 representatives from each school, representatives from the Marie Curie fundraising team, DurhamGate, Success(NE),DurhamGate DofE students, Spennynews and any other financial sponsors.

Design a Tea Pot Competition:

Each child was invited to design their very own teapot. A teapot template was issued to all schools in advance of the tea party, 12 designs were chosen by school and were collected by the tea party tour representatives. The chosen designs from each school weredisplayed at the DurhamGate Summer Festival- One Big Blooming Community Tea Party (Details Below). Ten local businesses who supply a ‘great cup of tea’ in Spennymoor were invited to judge the competition and one winning teapot from each school was selected to be transformed into a real teapot. The winning designers will be presented with their real teapot at a school assembly at a later date. (see below)

Design a Tea Pot Competition Winners:

School / Judge / Winner
North Park / Divine & Delicious / Joleigh Dodds
Tudhoe Moor Nursery / Clems / Chloe Diaz
Whitworth Park / Wetherspoons / Ethan Baker
Ox Close Nursery / The Kiln Rooms / Ruby Halliburton
King Street / Fulltums / William Jackson
The Oaks / Starbucks / Christian Jackson
Middlestone Moor / The Fox Cub / Jodie Clement
St Charles / Casa D’Italia / Jack Gullidge
Tudhoe Colliery / Jeff O’ Heir Mayor Of Spennymoor / Abbie Newman
Rosa Street / KJ’s Coffee Shot / Mollie Sudder

Feedback from the Tour Team:

  • What a fab experience and for a brilliant cause. The memories from this day will stay with me forever 
  • Mad Hatter – GREAT
  • Lots of happy smiling faces – Great to see
  • The whole day has been fantastic me and my little boy have loved it
  • I think it was gooooood!
  • Fast and fun
  • Really good day the entertainment was excellent
  • Amazing and great. DO IT AGAIN
  • Today was amazing – We should do an event in aid of charity every year
  • Today was exciting and fun can’t wait for tomorrow
  • Blooming great fun exciting
  • AMAZING – Loved it
  • It was excellent I had a lot of fun – but was a little bit tired by the end.
  • Fun, busy, hard, tiring
  • MAD
  • FUN
  • A great day for kids the mad hatter was really good
  • Really enjoyed today, lots of fun and great for the kids
  • I think it was FANTASTIC
  • Best day of my life 
  • I liked going to the Nursery Schools
  • Brilliant day, thank-you for inviting me
  • Today was brilliant,
  • Fun, happy and hectic 
  • A great team event creating awareness for Marie Curie Cancer through visual music and dance and theatre, every age took part and enjoyed the day 
  • A fantastic experience for all of the young people in the schools who took part, it was great being on the bus and seeing everyone’s reaction.

DurhamGate Summer Festival-One Big Blooming Great Tea Party!

The whole event culminated with One Big Blooming GreatCommunity tea party which was held at DurhamGate on Sunday 22nd June 1pm-4pm. The whole community was invited to the event and incorporated community performers, stalls, Marie Curie fundraising, side shows and tea of course!

Organisation / Type of Stall
Tudhoe Moor Nursery / Arts & Crafts/Advertising Nursery
Oaks School / Enterprising Goods
Spennymoor AAP / Promotion
Spennymoor Town Council / Promotion
Rosa Street / Name the Teddy in a Tea Cup
DurhamGate DofE Candidates/Spennymoor Youth Council / Cake stall
St Johns Ambulance / Promotion and first aid
Beautiful Brides / Sweet Cart Miss Teen Spennymoor
Spennymoor Leisure Centre / Promotion
Slimming World / Promotion
CAMHS / Promotion
Trinity Methodist Church / Promotion
One Point / Promotion
Reki Gift Company / Promotion
Police / Promotion
Tea Stall / Marie Curie Spennymoor
Glittery girl / Face Painting

Feedback from all of the stall holders, staff & volunteers was very positive and there was a buzz in the town with lots of conversation taking place on social media.

Counting up the money:

Each school made a donation to the tour team and at the community event the stalls made a donation or fundraised in some way. All of the money was counted up and came to a magnificent £2663 – this was boosted even further when DurhamGate pledged an additional £1000 taking the total raised over the 3 days to £3663. This would not have been possible without the support of the sponsors, schools, the community and the volunteers.