Dear Spalding in Bloom lovers!
We would like to thank many people who took part in Spalding in Bloom and some making that extra special effort to come along and help tidy, litter pick, weed or to help supervise where needed.
Firstly a very big thank you to all Jim Harvey’s team from the South Holland District Council who never stopped working along the judges route the whole week, the gardeners did a fantastic job and special thank you to Neil who must have been sick of receiving my calls of help! Thank you.
Thanks to all who showed us their businesses, put their work together and sent in for the brochure; Laura Simpkins for the very informative presentation on The Green Bag Lottery; The Garth and the Priory School for showing us around their amazing Community Projects they are working on and Chris Lee for showing us around, talking to the judges and pointing out the many projects which impressed the judges.
Thank you to Dan from Ayscoughfee who gave a very informative tour of the beautiful gardens and took the judges on a wonderful tour; Julia Knight for kindly bringing out John Hayes to introduce to the judges.
Thank you for Broadgate Homes for an amazing show of the Narrow Boat, it was wonderful to see such blooms on the top of the boat with Sam Ulyett and Anthony Grunwell as the Pilot waiting for clients to ride in the boat on such a lovely day. Thank you to Finlays for the beautiful arrangements that adorned the boat, it was great to see it so colourful and the judges thought it amazing by our mooring, something very new and hopefully point scoring.
Thank you to The Crescent for such a fantastic array of flower, baskets, bikes and especially clean streets, all commented by the judges, a wonderful welcome.
A well deserved drink at The Punchbowl as the judging took time to deliberate what they had seen and to see Pete & Steph & Ben Williams for a wonderful display in the pub’s garden of hanging baskets, tubs and floral displays and of course for all your hard work with the baskets around the town.
Thank you to Judy and her husband who won the Gardening Competition run by George Slinger, it was a wonderful sight to see and we could see so much hard work had gone into it. Thank you George for keeping up and supporting the event in the Spalding Guardian.
A well deserved Thank you to the National Citizen Service young people who worked tirelessly throughout the whole week and raised over £460 for In Bloom next year. Thank you Paul and Kim for having the group at Sainsbury’s to raise funds by ‘Bag Packing’, Tombola and Flower donations, they all really enjoyed their day there with you and even picked up the flowers again on Friday and worked hard to raise a little more money for In Bloom next year. Thank you, Mike Knight at Spalding Auction, Peter Ruysen at D & R Simmonds, Winchester Growers & Univeg Uk, all who were amazing and gave the NCS team some wonderful flowers to give to customers for a donation towards next year. Special thank you to the two ladies who arrived for that last minute push on Friday morning with the flowers, it was lovely to meet you both. Please see your pictures on the website www.tulip-radio.co.uk.
It was good to see Cllr Gamba Jones, Cllr Christine Lawton & Cllr Elizabeth Sneath on Thursday joining in and helping the young people doing their bit for the community, thank you.
Thank you to Julian for Welland Photo Services for helping me with the brochure, we hope the judges gave us some points for that one and of course Ian Oliver from the South Holland District Council who so kindly sorted it and had a team to collate it together for us.
Thank you to Callum Pepper and the Tulip Team who tried to help where they could in between keeping the station going.
Thank you to the Spalding in Bloom committee for all your hard work and the continued effort which will hopefully get us what we all so want, that GOLD.
Also to David Norton at Springfields Horticultural Society who kindly put on some refreshments at the end of the day for the judges before they went home.
Thank you to all the businesses who tried hard to make the streets of Spalding outside their premises so clean and tidy. Without the efforts of you all the town would not have looked so good. I’m sure Angela Newton is hoping for that GOLD award that we feel we so deserve, so much has improved and so many people got onboard with it this year, having extra baskets, helping and doing what they can.
WELL DONE to you all and THANK YOU for all your hard work and dedication.
I am praying I haven’t missed anyone, thank you to everyone who has been part of SPALDING IN BLOOM.
Jan Whitbourn
