MORE than 700 Ilkley residents joined in the nationwide Great Get Together to commemorate Jo Cox with a community picnic on The Grove on Sunday.

Local people spent the afternoon picnicking in the sunshine, sharing tables and food with family, neighbours and newly made friends, whilst being entertained by live music, dance demonstrations plus other activities from local groups.

There was a tug-of-war competition in honour of Father’s Day, won by a valiant team from Booths Supermarket. The Flying Duck provided free beers for the winners.

Members of the Joze School of Dance did a number of jazz and ballet demonstrations and buskers including saxophonist Steph, and singers Beth Armitage, Ben Jordon, Hattie Barnes and Pippa Simpson, kept the crowds entertained.

To test residents’ knowledge of Ilkley, Tesco provided a rather tricky quiz (and prizes) and officers from West Yorkshire Police delighted children with the opportunity to sit on a police bike and operate the siren!

Five hundred bottles of specially commissioned beer was donated by a group of breweries and there was a sharing table of food for those who did not have their own picnic supplies.

The Grove looked resplendent in the sunshine with 300 metres of colourful homemade bunting strung from lampposts. Tables and chairs were borrowed from local schools and church halls, providing ample seating for elderly residents from the town’s care homes who joined the celebrations.

A novel way of capturing the event came from local artist Hattie Clarke who drew a large scale representation of the event as it was happening, using the Skipton Building Society’s window as a giant easel.

The raffle, generously supported with prizes from many Ilkley businesses, raised £2,000, along with donations from the sharing table, exceeding all expectations. This will benefit local charity Ilkley Good Neighbours plus the Grenfell Tower families.

The event finished with a community singalong at the bandstand.

Becky Malby who headed up the organising committee said: “It was lovely to hear people saying how much they enjoyed meeting new folk, sitting at tables with people they didn’t know. The lunch was all about coming together as a community in very divisive times, and we really did that. We had people from all faiths, backgrounds, circumstances and ages from young families to older people living in care homes. The spirit of the event created a really lovely atmosphere, as it was free for all, with everyone bringing their own lunch and something to share – the sharing table was overflowing.

"The committee would like to say a big thank you to the national Great Get Together Team for getting us 500 bottles of specially brewed beer, and also to all the businesses in Ilkley that supported us on the day, in particular Martinez for the loan of their van, Tesco for running the quiz and providing food, Booths for an ace Tug of War team and for helping publicise and providing food, Skipton Building Society for letting us use their window as an easel for the art work, pinsharp for printing all our posters, The Clevedon restaurant for our banners and for prizes; and to the local clubs and societies that helped us Ilkley Good Neighbours hosting tables, The Flower Club for the table displays, the churches, scouts and Ilkley Arts for the tables and chairs, the Real Food Market for the gazebos, as well as the numerous businesses that donated Raffle prizes."

The Great Get Together was a weekend of community celebrations across the UK to mark the first anniversary of the murder of Jo Cox MP, and is inspired by her maiden speech to Parliament when she said: “We have more in common and are far more united than that which divides us". The initiative was started by the friends and family of Jo Cox and will be the biggest community event across the UK since the Diamond Jubilee.