2014 British Birdfair
And so another British Birdwatching Fair has passed, and Birding For All had their usual pitch (if not set up in the usual way), here are the results of the raffle, funds raised and some photos for you to enjoy, as well as some details on what happened.
Our New Set-up
2014 British Birdfair Our new stand set up
This year with new blood on the stand we did away with the ‘closed off behind tables’ look and went all out to practice what we preach and remove our barriers! Rather than us sitting behind desks, everyone was able to come in and speak to us when they wanted, and we all pitched in selling raffle tickets and books, it was a much more open Birding For All stand this year! It was, we think appreciated and we certainly enjoyed being more accessible.
Raffle Ticket and Book Sales
Our sales of raffle tickets were unfortunately down on previous years -we hope next year to sell much more and sell before the event online, so get your cheque books out now! On the other hand our Book sales did much better than ever before, the break down is as follows:
- Book sales: £500.00 (last year £324.00) up £176
- Raffle: £366.75 (last year £500.00) down £133
- Donations: £527.90 (last year £214) up £314
An increase of £357 from last year so the BBF was a sucess as a fund raiser as well as our main ‘shop window’.
Raffle
The raffle once again offered fabulous prizes. Swarovski donated superb binoculars, Opticron gave us a telescope travel kit to raffle and ‘Griff’ Griffiths (twice ‘artist of the year’) gave us a superb painting of Long-tailed Tits, Mark Avery gave us a T-Shirt celebrating Hen harriers and a dozen authors gave us signed copies of their books. As always we want to publicly thank them all for their wonderful support.
Raffle Winners
- 1st – Ticket No.0566 – Mrs. S. Arlow (Swarovski Bins)
- 2nd – Ticket No.0372 – Neil Glenn (Opticron Scope)
- 3rd – Ticket No.0363 – Gary Carter (Original Watercolour)
- 4th – Ticket No.0363 – Graham Jones (Signed Books)
- 5th – Ticket No.0400 – R Keye (Hen Harrier Day T-Shirt)
Here is the winner of the top prize (or at least her husband who promised he would hand them over)…
Second prize went to Neil Glenn – writer, tour leader and fanatical football fan. We could not be more pleased as Neil has supported the BFA for years and always donates some of his books for us to sell. Guess what, we asked him to become one of our patrons!
Here is Gary Carter winner of the terrific painting by Griff!
Bird Fair Photos:
Below is a pictorial record of some of the well-known visitors to our stand, most of whom are patrons! But we start with the BFA team (minus Ashley Beolens who took the photo) all ready for three days hard work.
BFA team (minus Ashley Beolens who took the photo)
Bo Sharing a joke with Bill Oddie as he hands over drawings for the raffle
Mark Avery, late of the RSPB, patron, blogger and campaigner for Hen Harriers
Zoe and Phil meet Iolo Williams of ‘Spring Watch’ fame
The team are delighted that ‘Big Cats Diary’ filmmaker Jonathan Scott could pop over to see us all again…
Patron, friend and all round good bloke Mike Dilger gives hugs all round
Just for once Bo gets off his backside to greet another patron and fellow Kent resident, who also happens to be chair of the Hawk and Owl Trust, Philip Merricks
Bo is back in his chair to catch up with patron, writer and sports journalist Stu Winter
David Lindo catches Maggie reading his book… and gives his customary hugs
Thank you to all our patrons who stopped by, all our members who came for a visit, anyone who shared our twitter and facebook messages and above all anyone who entered our draw, donated money or bought a book, we appreciate all your help.