Santa's Helpers Thankyou 2025

On Monday night (February 10th) the Rotary Club of Sutton in Ashfield held their Christmas THANK YOU evening to thank all the people and groups that helped us take Santa on his Sleigh around the streets of Sutton in Ashfield last December. The event was held in the Princess Suite of the Sutton ATTFE College, with close to a hundred supporters in attendance.

Everyone who helped support Santa on the numerous routes each night around Sutton in Ashfield received a thank you certificate and each volunteer group received a donation, ranging from £250 to £1,000, depending on how many nights they had helped with the door-to-door collections.

The groups participating were: D of E students (£1,000), Ashfield Rugby club (£1,000), Sea Cadets (£500), New Cross Community Church (£500), Let's All Eat food bank (£250, Together In Ashfield (£250), Sutton Fire Brigade (£250), Sutton in Ashfield Inner Wheel (£250) Pictured: New Cross Community Group and Rotary President Karen Alderton

Rotary President, Karen Alderton, thanked each of the supporters individually, adding "Sadly, gone are the days when Santa's sleigh could be manned by Rotarians alone so we invite groups from around the town to help us with the door-to-door collections and reward them accordingly. Without their help we could not continue our Santa Sleigh collections and the Rotary Club is very grateful to have this opportunity to say thank you to all the individuals and groups who supported us."

A very special thank you was also made to our very own Sutton Santa, Simon Brocklehurst, for his unstinting work on the sleigh at Christmas time. Sutton in Ashfield Rotary club were delighted to not only donate to Simon a cheque for £500 to the charity of his choice - the John Eastwood Hospice - we were very pleased to offer Simon an honorary membership to the Rotary club, which he was pleased to accept. Pictured: President Karen Alderton presents Simon with his cheque, sleigh certificate and honorary membership certificate.

Simon reponded "Thank you to everyone who donated to the Rotary Santa, with your help we managed to raise over £8000, plus I got made into a member of the The Rotary Club of Sutton in Ashfield, so I will be able to help more as our community means a lot to us"