After many months of work and planning the annual St Catherine’s Christmas Fair came to fruition last Friday night. The skies looked ominous during the day, however we were blessed with a beautiful spring evening and the School and wider community came together to enjoy the night.

The rides and animal farm were loved by all the children – particularly the Spin out Thrill ride. This year we sold a record numbers of wrist bands, well over 400 in total, and it was wonderful to see the children enjoying the rides so much.

The food trucks were a very welcome addition to the Fair this year. The combination of food seemed to cater well to both parents and children and there have been many positive comments on how tasty the food from the food trucks were, the adults particularly enjoyed the Vietnamese.

The Pimms and Beer Bar was well attended, and the Wine Bar was inundated with patrons due to the particularly high standard of wines that were generously donated by one of our boarding families, Wendy Buller from Buller Wines.

A fantastic selection of Market Stalls run by students, parents and old girls offered a beautiful range of high quality merchandise. I hope you found something special to buy for yourself or your home.

The Lolly Stall was very generously stocked with the support of AirCon 4U, and all lollies sold out by the end of the night.

This year our Jolly Bag Stall was the largest it has ever been. I wish to extend our deepest gratitude to all parents in the School that kindly made up the more than 500 Jolly bags with some individual families donating 20, 30 or 40 each.

Carnival for Kids provided a live action stage show complete with singing and dancing. The children loved joining in to sing Christmas carols and dance. It was lovely to see so many happy, smiling faces. I think all the children particularly enjoyed watching Mrs Moor join in the fun and dance.

This year we were incredibly lucky to have a wonderful group of generous people willing to donate both their time and money to making our Fair such a success. Please click here for sponsor details.

We wish to express our sincerest gratitude to:

Amex: For donating our rides
South Yarra BMW: who have financially supported the PFA across numerous projects this year
Carnival for Kids: Catherine Rosenberg provided the wonderful Stage Show, the roaming artists and two fabulous face painters
Jellis Craig: donated the Animal Farm
Aircon 4U: providing our Lolly Stall
Bread Solutions: rolls for the gourmet BBQ
Happy Herd: sausages for BBQ
Buller Wines: red, white and sparkling wine
Waste Management Solutions: bins
Donna Meggitt: smoked trout
Paje Designs: designing our wonderful posters and advertising material.

Finally I wish to thank the amazing team of people on the PFA, Christie Freeman, Jenny Stern, Jane King, Rowena Mytton, Jane White, Ann McAllister, Drusilla Williams, Annabel Glover, Amanda Thompson, Sam Wood, Angelina Barber, Danielle Podolak, Sherrie Zeng, Michelle Wang, Lara Stocco, Susie Farrer and Joanne Livanidis. The Fair was a success due to everyone pulling together on the night.