Chaucer House Christmas Party!
By Nichola Hayden – Support Services Officer
Christmas can be a difficult time for some, but with the Cost of Living Crisis happening right now things can be even tougher. For those families that are currently having to stay in temporary accommodation, the traditional family Christmas is almost impossible.
This year at Chaucer House we held a Christmas party for the children; an opportunity to get together, play games, eat party food, sing and dance and of course get a present or two from Santa and just have some fun! The children were all ages from as young as a couple of months right up to teenagers. It was a joy to see them all come together for a couple of hours.
Although families live in close proximity to each other in temporary accommodation, they don’t always get to know one another, so events like the Christmas party gives them all an opportunity to make friends and for parents to build a little community. We can all appreciate a little help from our neighbours.
The real stars of the show were the Support Services Officers and the Assistants at Chaucer House who seamlessly took the task to hand while I flapped about. They made invites, decorated the lounge, provided party games and music, and made sure there was something to eat for everyone. Costumes were borrowed/made/bought by staff to wear; we had Elves, Christmas Presents and our very own Christmas Fairy. We had Santa’s little helpers with their reindeer antlers and there was even a last-minute pair of fairy wings made by Angela. Santa, of course, came with his own suit to wear…
When he arrived on his sleigh (which he parked round the back) the children loved it and there were squeals of delight coming from all. Seeing the smiles on the children’s faces made it all worth it.
None of this of course would have been possible without an incredible amount of help from not only our fabulous Support Services Team who organised the actual event from start to finish but to the outside agencies; Morgan Sindall for donating the Christmas tree and Abi Tisdall for delivering it. Southend Resident Tenants Federation for the funding which provided the food, Chloe Hague and Sharon Daniels for buying it, our ‘Bacon Butty Wednesday’ collection and Iona Spence, (out her own pocket) helped to buy decorations, Sophie Aldridge for providing the music, Houghton’s for loaning the Red Suit and of course to our lovely Sarah Gallagher Resident Involvement Officer who initiated it all to get people on board to help.
I personally feel honoured to be part of a team that cares about their tenants and their children, not just because it’s Christmas but because that’s just what we do. We will continue to sprinkle a little fairy dust everywhere we go.
Special thanks to Sharon Daniels, Angela Lloyd, Sophie Aldridge, Cheryl Say, Crista Poole, Lyndsey Clarke, Iona Spence, Tracy Beers, Emma Saville and Katie Lee for all your incredible help.