FROM Wednesday to Saturday last week Otley Parish Church was the venue for the tenth annual Christmas Tree Festival after two years when Covid had prevented it from being held.
Forty trees were decorated by local charities and organisations to create a truly fantastic festival of light. The festival was opened by the Town Crier, Terry Ford, and the Vicar of Otley, Reverend Aaron Kennedy and was attended by the Mayor of Otley, Cllr Linda Hoare.
Throughout the festival visitors enjoyed musical contributions from each of the Otley primary schools and from Prince Henry's Grammar School. There were also excellent performances from the Chippendale Singers; the Courthouse Choir and Sheep Town Songsters; Singing for Pleasure; the Wharfedale Male Voice Choir and the choir from the Parish Church.
Organisers said it was difficult to know how many people had visited the festival but it had been extremely busy on both the Friday and the Saturday. Certainly when the charities' collecting buckets were moved they were very full and very heavy! Visitors were asked to choose their favourite tree and in the end it was the tree decorated by the Prickly Pigs Hedgehog Rescue that secured most 'favourite' votes.
One visitor, however, had simply written 'all of them' on the voting slip and certainly everyone who attended the festival commented on how beautiful all the trees were.
The festival is now being organised by a team from the Parish Church and if you know of a charity that would like to have a tree in future years or a music group that would enjoy performing at the festival please email Allan Boddy at allanboddy@gmail.com.
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