Written by Tamara
On the 1st June, we began a new era of our Saturday Kids’ Club… on a Tuesday. It was half-term and restrictions had lifted enough for us to have thirty people in the beautiful Woodlawns Centre garden. We could only invite twelve of the most regular children this time, as with siblings and adults 30 is easily reached! We hope to be able to invite more families, later in the summer. SLRA have held a Zoom party every Saturday since March 2020, and this was the first time that the children had met outside of a Zoom window. It was a beautiful, sunny day. We set out café style tables for each household bubble under some cheerful bunting and the mercifully shade-giving tree. We displayed the quilt up in all its glory. This was the first real-life glimpse for some of the women’s group who had created it, and their children loved proudly pointing out which ones their mums had made!
Tamara Women’s group quilt 
Play-Time
Our famous chef-cook volunteer cooked a delicious lunch including vegetarian daal, rice, chips, and a refreshing fruit salad. Lisa & Rebekka were sous-chefs and runners, darting here, there and everywhere all day to make everything go smoothly. Thanks also to one of the women who brought some yummy dessert called ‘Qatayef sweets’ we all enjoyed very much. A new volunteer, Alessandra, was a great help with all the cleaning, arts & crafts and she was an enthusiastic hide and seeker.
I enjoyed the food ????
Daphne (4years old)
We decorated plant pots with gold vinyl stickers in our own designs and planted them up with lots of colourful flowers. Thanks to ‘Gardener Andy’, as the kids call him, for his help on this front! The quilters are very handy with a needle and thread by now so it was not long before we had a lovely new string of collectively-made fabric bunting.
The children played lots of fun games, filling the garden with shrieks of laughter… especially when being chased by a socially distant foam stick! We played all the classics from our Zoom parties – ‘Tomato Ketchup’, ‘Dance – Freeze – Action’ and, of course, danced to our favourite dance anthem, ‘Peanut Butter Jelly Time’! It was an utter joy to do these things in 3D. We could not exactly do a super group skipping display on Zoom… and the quality of the dance off was quite something IRL, as was our euphoric ‘Follow the dance leader’ with kids and adults alike – four year old Daphne and her mum showed us how it was done! As it was so hot, we thought the only way to finish was water-based… thanks Sharky & George for the catapult and water balloons. I don’t think Amelia will thank you as she got soaked but her children loved it! We hope that this will be the first of many face-to-face family fun days…
‘I and Ysabel loved it. I hope we can do it again!’
Mum of Ysabel
I really enjoyed the family fun day a lot, my favourite part was decorating the plant vase, the bubble and the water balloon fight.
Dana (8 years old)
It was so amazing, meeting people in real life not just on zoom and speaking on the phone. My 3 girls were very happy especially Dana asking can we go again mummy?
Mum of Daphne and Dana
It was great to meet other people and make new friends. I loved the activities! Especially the dance competition and water balloon fight.
Amelia and Finn
The family fun day was very enjoyable and made every body smile ????. we also loved it so much and we wish it could happen again and again. Even we say thank you ???? to all that made the day fun.
Rhea
I enjoyed everything: the flowers, the bubbles, and the games. I hope we will do again. Thanks so much!
Matthew and his mother
Thank you so much for everything. Everyone did a good job especially Tamara she was amazing, she really did a great job with the children, she did her best to make the children happy , it was a happy and relaxing day ,thank you for the lunch it was delicious, thank you for everything ,I really appreciate it ,it was a pleasure to meet everyone in the party.
Thanks a lot!
father
The blog entry is written by Tamara who organises the kid’s party online every Saturday and has done an amazing job by hosting the first SLRA family day after Lockdown. Many thanks to Tamara for wonderful work!
To respect the privacy of the families, their names have been changed.