Chigwell Village has them but Chigwell Row still has no festive lights?

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As we get closer to the Christmas Holidays Chigwell Row residents must be thinking, are we going to have another gloomy Christmas without any festive lights.  Despite paying our council tax like all these other communities, we suffer the ignominy of  a dampened down celebration during the winter months.

Well, this year CRRA wants to nip this apathy in the bud! 

It makes no sense that our children miss out on the bright lights of the festive period.  There are a diverse range of faiths in our borough and many of them have celebrations around the same time as Christmas.  Guru Nanak's Birthday is celebrated on 30th November 2020, Milad Un Nabi for some of the Muslim community is celebrated on 3rd November 2020, Hindus will be celebrating Geeet Jayanti on 25th December and Hanukkah for the Jewish Community is from 11th - 18th December 2020. So pretty much all of us have cause to celebrate the winter season.

We took a look at the agenda for the Financial Planning meeting for Chigwell Row Parish Council and noticed that a budget of £10,000 has been proposed for next year.  We have Cllr Pravin Bhanot to thank for that foresight. We hope our festive lights this year will be a trigger for an even better illumination next year.

This year winter has the impending gloom of a lockdown as COVID-19 rears its ugly head again. To give local people some hope and to elevate our morale, CRRA would like to propose a small community festive light programme, that we totally believe we can secure in time for it to be feasible. 

We feel that introducing festive light to either the Maypole Pub or All Saints Church would be the best location as they are central to our ward, and are well known, historical buildings.  Due to the current neglect of the Maypole however, we focused on All Saints Church. We also felt that our local shops on Lambourne Road would be a useful location, as they are in areas of high footfall. 

If people have a better suggestion of where festive lights should go we would be pleased to hear from you.

We have spoken to Reverend Paula who would be willing to place Christmas Lights at her church and we hoped to adorns the walls or All Saints Church and some of the trees as well as having a lit rope light of the nativity scene, including the silhouettes of the Three Magi and a larger stable with Joseph, Mary and Jesus in a manger.  Three Magi, a shepherd Tree and a sign that reads 'Merry Christmas' will ensure people in and visiting the borough benefit from a welcoming and inspiring illumination.

Reverend Paula Preston, said:

"We at All Saints’ Church warmly welcome the opportunity to host the Chigwell Row Community Christmas lights on our site, it’ll be a privilege and a delight to have them here during the festive season and we pray that the hearts of everyone who sees them will be warmed."

We have an agreement in place for lights to be fitted to the shops on the Lambourne Road parade - in support of a project from former Councillor Roger Farthing.  We hope to introduce the same glittering, snowdrop lights by the beginning of November to coincide with all the religious festivals celebrated locally. Funding for these lights have already been agreed via a private donor.

The project will cost in the region of £962 and we already have some potential donors and were hoping to raise the rest via a crowd fund that is being led by Hannah Chowdhry (click here).  Before we begin this project however, we wanted to know how many of the local residents would be in favour and if anyone has any objections.  

Please share your thought with us by emailing wilson@eastilfordbettermentpartnership.org