Marching in the closed Square

There is a Christmas Eve tradition that the Mayor and representatives from their charities, come to town to collect for the charities – I guess the hope is that everyone is in such lovely spirit that they’ll give generously!  This year we moved the day to the Saturday as Christmas Eve was a Monday and not quite so likely to be busy in town.  And to make it special in the hope that people was stick around a bit, the Dorset Youth Marching band joined in again and played for a good few hours to entertain the shoppers.

The band are always a brilliant draw – so bright and colourful (and loud of course)!

Looking furtively for donations!

I arrived about 10am with my collecting tins and was joined by a few Town Councillors and charity representatives and between us we walked up and down for 3 hours collecting from the crowd watching the band.  It certainly would not have been such a success without them – thank you DYMB!  By the way, they’re looking for new members if anyone fancies banging a drum (I really really want to but may not qualify for the ‘youth’ bit)!

We collected about £322 which isn’t at all bad for a few hours work!