What is Christmas without Christmas Lights and what would Beverley look like during the festive period without the hard work of the Beverley Christmas Lights Appeal Committee?
Well there wouldn’t be quite the same festive atmosphere. Many towns and cities rely on lighting up events and the ongoing aesthetic improvement to draw customers into the shops and businesses. The Beverley Christmas Lights Appeal Committee is working hard all year round to make the town sparkle for us all.
It doesn’t come cheap though, last year alone the cost of putting the lights up and taking them down again cost around £4000, all of which comes out of the fundraising pot.
The Group feels very fortunate to have the generous support of some businesses that contribute. Prue Blake from the Beverley Christmas Lights Appeal says:
“We understand that businesses are being asked to donate funds for many different causes and it would be nice if more businesses could be more involved in generating money for it, the lights are for their benefit too.”
“Last year Sangwin kindly donated a cherry picker and operator, free of charge. Due to new Health and Safety regulations the Christmas trees for all the participating shops have to be put up by professionals.”
“We are a small group of citizens and shop traders and we all enjoy organising fundraising events and coming up with ideas for lighting displays. We are busy all year-round raising money in many different ways such as, treasure hunts, bag packing and we have our own ladies day and much more.”
“Beverley Town Council has put in £7500 towards the lights. This is spent on replacing broken lights, putting them up and taking them down and we are delighted to have been granted £5000 from East Riding Council’s High Street fund.”
“We are pleased to receive excellent feedback which is generally very positive. The ice white colours of the lighting displays have been described as ‘classy’ and ‘lovely’. However some people dislike the lack of colour. Unfortunately we can’t please everyone but I am very proud every year to be involved in lighting up our town at Christmas.”
Reported by Joe Hibbs
