Flower festival at Kirkham URC
I hope some of you went to see this event after I'd publicised it at Fulwood!
Dianne Bibby and I had been busy since April, bringing to fruition an idea she'd had. Our theme was to be The Sunday School Movement, and for Feed My Lambs we were working on Jesus with a group of children around him. We didn't want to give detail to the figure of Jesus, but preferred a swirl of purple fabrics to simply suggest his presence— with a crook held in place to represent the shepherd side of his nature.
This was where the fun really began! I tried in vain with the fabric on its own, but then hit upon the idea of stuffing an old dressing gown with newspaper to produce a vague body shape. I sat this on top of a huge garden pot and then swirled the fabric around it. I placed this epic work in the dining room. When I came upon him again, around dusk, there was Darth Vader looking back at me! I quickly decided he would frighten every child for miles around, and scare everyone away from our flower festival, so I had to re-think. After some discussion Di and I simply flung fabric around a slim pedestal and there, as proud as Punch, was Jesus holding his crook.
We
decided not to have a face for Him, just an oval of gold to depict light shining
forth. I set to with tissue paper and glue to make an oval, basic
shape— then gold spray-painted it. There, looking up at me, was R2D2! Do you
think I had Star Wars on the brain? We pulled the purple cloak further
over
the gold oval to recess the face and hey presto! Jesus reappeared!
We arranged our scene on an old door, and this was then balanced on top of some pews. It was quite an area to fill. We covered it with hessian and this was then stapled to the wood. Stones and large pebbles helped and some sand from a bag in our shed was scattered at the feet of Jesus. Into this we drew a simplistic fish: it seemed important to do this as the fish symbol was used by early Christians.
The children surrounding Jesus were again stylised. Twiggy balls depicted their heads, with fabric and braid for headdresses— inspired, of course, by the usual teatowel and dressing gown cord as used in all Nativity Plays! Their bodies were to be flowers and leaves formed into conical shapes of varying heights.
Fortunately, Di had two tall pot-plants to represent palm trees.These gave weight and height to the overall arrangement. The mechanics are the most important part of any flower arrangement and sufficient time has to be allowed to get these right. Thought has to be given to the colour scheme and flowers have to be ordered in advance; you then hope the market can supply what you want! You have to 'guesstimate' how many will be needed; fortunately June is a time when flowers are relatively inexpensive and any left over would always be snapped up for pew ends.
Flower
arrangers are
good at wheedling props from friends, and also at raiding their gardens for
greenery. This has to be thoroughly washed so that it's in pristine condition;
many a bath in the neighbourhood was unavailable to the family because it was
filled with leaves and flowers! To give more of a hot desert feeling to the
arrangement, my cordeline bush was stripped of many a strap leaf well ahead of
June, to end up suitably dried and wizened in good time.
The aim of the Flower Festival was to celebrate 200 years of worship at the church. In those early days, when churches were the mainstay of the education system, the members of this church had undertaken the building of a huge schoolroom. The present-day Sunday School children had an opportunity to take part in the festival by making small posy arrangements in glasses. Other, larger, arrangements included such things as the commerce of the area and the Battle of Trafalgar: Kirkham was involved in the flax industry and making cloth for ships' sails. There was also an exhibition of many, many old photographs of the town.
Much fund-raising went on prior to the festival, enabling all the flowers to be paid for in advance: this was essential for the peace of mind of the organisers. Sponsorship helped to fill the coffers too. Over 50 pew ends were paid for in commemoration of loved ones at a charge of £5 per arrangement. Refreshments were served throughout the event and there was opportunity to buy goods at the craft fair which had been organised in conjunction with the flower festival. Marilyn Wilson, who masterminded the whole operation, probably needed to take her bed down to the church for the week leading up to the official opening: she worked so hard both before and during the festival week.
Throughout the festival a rôta of organists provided music and a concert was held in the church on the Saturday. The Rev.Charles Read and his wife Ruth served a four year stint in Kirkham when we belonged to that church: they specially flew over from Minnesota, USA, to conduct the Sunday morning service. This was followed by a Songs of Praise in the evening— and the flowers added such a wonderful atmosphere (and aroma) to the event.
I hope that you visited Kirkham and enjoyed yourselves. Maybe it gave some of you inspiration to think of a future flower festival for Fulwood Methodist Church? If you do plan a festival for the future, allow plenty of time for pre-publicity, advertising and obtaining sponsorship. Teas, a craft fair and church services can all boost funds. It is a lot of hard work and no one can deny that, but the satisfaction we gained when Darth Vader turned into Jesus was immense. There were stumbling blocks along the way, but as ever we were joyfully persistent!
