A Year of Celebration

As we start the New Year, all focus has been on how we will celebrate our 75th anniversary here at Strode Park Foundation. We are ever hopeful that we will be able to go forward with all of events this year and have tailored them as much as possible to be COVID safe and fun at the same time. So, make sure to get out your calendar and start marking off some dates because we have a year packed full of great events for you!

We will be starting the year with our annual Easter Egg Hunt, which, unfortunately last year had to be cancelled due to lock down. We cannot run our Easter Egg Hunt as we would usually, as it would be unsafe to do so, however we know it is a much-loved event and we did not want to leave our supporters with nothing. Our hunt will be on Saturday 3 April and instead of being in our usual location of Strode Park House gardens, the event will instead be held at Cherry Orchards in Herne (opposite Strode Park Foundation) and we will be sending you off to some locations around Herne to complete your egg hunt with Easter-themed clues. When you arrive back, you’ll be given a prize.

We are not just bringing you Easter fun this April, but we will also be holding our Charity Car Run on Friday 16 April. The car run will start in Herne Bay and will follow a route through the gorgeous Kent countryside passing crash sites of the Battle of Britain planes and then to a final destination of The Battle of Britain Scramble Experience in Folkestone. We have made this event COVID safe and unless we are in a full lock down will be able to go forward with it. Tickets start at just £30 for two people.

For some much-needed birthday celebrations we will be holding a Country Fayre and Garden Party on Sunday 13 June. This event will be packed full of local craft stalls, music, food, and entertainment. Over the decades we have run many events including our Summer fetes and Rose Shows and wanted a birthday celebration that would be an ode to these events, whilst bringing you all something new and exciting.

Do not fear as long as it is safe to do so we will be bringing back our Theatre in the Park event for 2021. In fact, you can purchase tickets to some of our favourite acts already. Visit www.strodepark.org.uk/events and book now! We will be bringing back some much-loved acts such as A Night in Nashville and Uncle Funk’s Disco Inferno as well as some new faces including a comedy performance from Mark Watson who has appeared in comedy shows such as ‘Taskmaster’ and ‘Would I Lie To You?’. So if you would like a great night full of dancing, drinking and laughing then book a date at our Theatre In The Park.

We will also be bringing you some virtual events this year including our Virtual Pet Show which will need all entries in by 23 May. Last year we held a Virtual Dog Show and it was a great success, but we listened to our supporters and realised there were much more pets that people wanted to celebrate, so we are allowing all pets this year! Votes will be made through likes on each picture, whichever picture gets the most likes will be the winner of that category and whichever pet gets the overall most likes will be best in show! We will also be bringing back our Virtual Pumpkin Carving Competition, which again will be hosted on Facebook. To keep updated with our virtual events and any other events we have going on follow us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/StrodeParkFoundation.

Now Christmas feels a world away, but there is nothing like being prepared! Like many of our events last year we had to cancel our Christmas Market 2020, so we are bringing it back for 2021 and it will be better than ever – we have two years’ worth of Christmas celebrating that needs to be had! Our Christmas Market will be full of craft stalls, music, entertainment, food, and drink. You may even get to meet Santa and a few of his Reindeers!

Make sure to follow us on our social media including Facebook page to keep up with all things Strode, as well as keeping an eye on our website at www.strodepark.org.uk to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our events.

We are optimistic about 2021 and really hope we can bring you all these great events and celebrate turning 75 in style! For now, we hope you all stay safe and well and get through this lock down, we will definitely all need some events and fun times in our life after the last 12 months!