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Pancakes in the park
The churches in Wadestown decided to celebrate Shrove Tuesday a little differently this year.
They turned the tradition of Christians eating pancakes on the eve of Lent into a community celebration of Summer.
For a number of years the local churches have organised Carols in the Park. This event, which last year attracted over 300 people, is now anticipated by the wider community, who come early to get a good seat and stay long after the carol singing is over to enjoy socialising in our local park.
The idea of Pancakes in the Park built on this tradition. We offered a great jazz band, Hot Club Sandwich, generously funded by Wellington City Council. We provided juice, a sausage sizzle and hundreds of pancakes with delicious toppings.
People were encouraged to bring along a picnic tea or buy the food on offer and enjoy a summer evening in the park listening to good music with other people from their community. Extra entertainment was provided in the form of local identities taking part in a pancake-tossing challenge, an idea which the children enthusiastically embraced as well.
We decided to step up a level in the standard of advertising this event and received generous sponsorship, which enabled us to design and print some classy flyers and posters. Our two congregations tramped the streets delivering flyers into 1700 letter boxes.
The only problem was the weather. A cold southerly blew into Wellington the day before the event and refused to leave until the day after! We begrudgingly shifted indoors to the church hall and while this had an impact on the numbers who attended, we were still happy that over 130 people, including a good number from outside of our church communities, joined with us to celebrate summer through music and food.
By Sharon Ensor