Coastal Crafty Crew Craft Fair

Some information
about us and our craft fairs.

I (Jan
Kelsea-Simmons) founded the Birchington & Westgate-on-sea Crafty Crew in
December 2016. My aim was to form a group of local crafters, whose crafts vary
enormously from jewellery, cards, book folds, wood crafts, signs, crystal sun
catchers and much more, who were looking for an outlet to display and sell
their wares, the stipulation being that everything had to be hand-made. After
asking for Admin volunteers Frank & Sue Miller joined me and arrangements
were made for the first Crafty Crew Fair to take place on Saturday 10 December
2016 at Church House, Birchington. As we processed with our Craft Fairs, I
asked for more volunteers and Tricia Mankelton joined in us in 2018 then Jenny
Bushel & Trudi Leach joined in 2020. Jan also wanted to raise funds for
charity and so organised a raffle at the first craft fair, the proceeds of
which together with the pitch fees (after expenses) were donated to Cancer
Research. The amount raised was £240.

Subsequent fairs in
2017 raised £1,500 for the Rainbow Children’s Ward, Dementia Unit and Special
Care Baby Unit at QEQM Hospital, and a cheque for this amount was presented to
representatives from QEQM and the East Kent Hospitals Charity at our
pre-Christmas fair on 4^th November 2017. We will be raising further
funds at our events in 2018 for the Stroke Unit and Diabetes Unit at QEQM
Hospital, Margate, and the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) further £1700 was given to these charities’

We have raised £600
for Demelza Children Hospice Kent and another £600 for Kent Air Ambulance 2019.
We have chosen another two charities for 2020 and these are ROYAL NATIONAL
LIFEBOAT INSTITUTION in Margate Charity Reg 209603 we raised a further £700. We
would be grateful if you could give us a donation towards the tombola to raise
money for these charities. Total amount to date that we have raised is £6,340.
We have chosen two charities for 2021 we decided to do again Margate RNLI
Charity reg 209603 and Great Ormond Street Hospital GOSH charity Reg 1160024.

During 2020 with
COVID-19 we were unable to have some of our Craft fairs, but we resumed our
Craft Fairs in August to November 2020 but unfortunately, we had to cancel our
remaining Decembers Craft Fairs but during our lockdown we still raised money
for keyworkers by having a raffle some our crafts that where kindly donated by
our crafters. We decided that the person who won one of our prizes could nominate
a key worker and we send them a hamper just say we are thinking of them in
total we managed raise enough money for 7 hampers for our keyworkers across the
country.

Following our successful
fair on 4^th November 2017 the name of the Group was changed to The
Coastal Crafty Crew

All our fairs are
for hand-made crafts only.

From April to December the first Sunday at The Small Barn at Quex Park.

For those
of you who are unfamiliar with Quex Park, Birchington, http://www.quexpark.co.uk/ the small barn has
recently been completely re-built following a fire in 2016. It is a large venue
with a brick veranda outside with picnic tables. Car parking for both
stallholders and visitors is free. We will not be providing refreshments but
the Restaurant, which is a separate building at the front of the small barn,
offers a huge selection of snacks, light bites, lunch, and dinner. In addition,
there are many attractions at Quex all year round and particularly during the
spring and summer, and of course there is the famous museum and a wedding venue
which attracts a considerable number of visitors throughout the year. Quex also
has its own holiday park and campsite, and Birchington Vale Holiday Park is a
short distance away, so there is potential for a significant footfall.

Just a
reminder that all stallholders must have Public Liability Insurance and a copy
of the certificate must be sent with the completed booking form and payment.
Please note that only one clothes rail or stand is permitted at our event at
Quex barn but if you decide not to have a table, we will allow one clothes
rails for clothes per pitch but please check with us first.