In 2007, as a local Handybus driver, Caroline Billington was asked if she would drive a group of old ladies to a lunch on Christmas Day. She agreed, little knowing that this would be a journey that would change her life.
As she drove the ladies home after their Christmas lunch certain aspects of their conversation struck her:
What a fantastic day they had had
How she wished she could have been part of/contributed to it
How happy they all were to have met each other so that they could meet and have a cup of tea at anytime during the year.
The following year Caroline volunteered for the whole of Christmas Day and subsequently took part in organising the local lunch before deciding that she wanted to do more. Community Christmas was born in 2011 when she shared her experience to help new organisers establish 2 additional events. During 2012 two more new events were established and the website started to evolve as we listed other events (20) around the country so that they could easily be found by those looking for companionship.
With 74 events in 2013 up to 152 in 2014 and our Big Lottery Fund grant helping us to identify over 300 in 2015 we continue to grow and enable local events to reach further into their communities and particularly the isolated older people in them. We continue to believe that there is no one size fits all and are happy to include pubs setting aside a table for those booking alone, a ‘house party’ at a Scottish hotel, activities in communal halls and more traditional group lunches. We are also proud to list those BUPA homes which open their doors to the public over the Christmas period – some for a Christmas Day lunch and others for longer periods of respite and companionship.
During 2015 we achieved registered charity status and hope to build on this recognition to increase our impact. In 2016 we hope to hear about, and list, an increasing number of people/organisations offering and seeking a chance to get together and are working closely with our partners Friends of the Elderly to achieve this. We continue to work with individuals and partners to motivate and support activities so that as we get closer to Christmas Day we see more people inviting their neighbours in to watch TV with them, groups getting together to go to the local pub for Christmas Day lunch and new organisers taking up the challenge of running a community event. We also hope that this will lead to stronger communities that will support each other throughout the year and we love hearing the stories from around the country.