Today was the first day of 2012′s Breastfeeding Awareness Week and I think that we celebrated in style today.
Breastfeeding Friendly Chester had been planning a Picnic in the Park for a while now and a couple of weeks ago started tweeting and facebooking to raise awareness and get some support from local businesses.
Emma and I were really pleasantly surprised and very grateful to the overwhelming response and random tweets we received. We had companies seeking us out and offering to support the event in any way they could.
Fast forward to a few days ago and we started to panic. The weather forecast for this weekend was not good. How many families were likely to brave the wet weather and sit on soggy blankets eating soggy sandwiches in a soggy park? I am willing to guess that it would only be the poor NCT volunteers and their other halves who would feel they HAD to be there no matter what and the picnic would quite literally be a washout!
Fortunately, one of Brio Leisure’s Venues, The Northgate Arena, had an available sportshall. Deciding that an indoor picnic which could go ahead in the rain was better than a cancelled picnic or one with no picknickers, we booked the hall and facebooked and tweeted like crazy to make sure everyone knew of the change of venue.
Emma had the brilliant idea of starting the day with a ride on Chester’s Heritage Bus. She had a banner made and we piled on with the little ones announcing over the loud speaker who we were, what we did and that we were proudly celebrating Breastfeeding Awareness Week.
The little ones loved it! Spud was really taken aback by the fact that the bus had “No roof Mummy!”
Although it was a little windy at times, the black clouds which threatened to rain on us the whole way round Chester thankfully held on to their load and we didn’t get soaked.
The driver and tour guide were absolutely lovely and the driver was honking his horn at appropriate times during our commentary to the unsuspecting Chester public :D I would highly recommend that you hop on the bus next time you visit Chester or even book the bus for a wedding or birthday.
I wanted to get a photo of everyone who came and supported us and say thank you on here but if you have ever organised something and had the distraction of your own children too, you will know that things never quite go to plan. Thankfully the extremely lovely Julie Smith volunteered her time again and took lots of photos so I can’t wait to see those.
Here is a little montage of photos I did manage to take and logos which if you click on them, will take you to the company website in question. Without the support of these companies, we wouldn’t have been able to make it such a fun afternoon and we really are grateful for all the support. It made for a lovely afternoon which families could enjoy without spending the earth which is so easily done when you have little ones. At one count we had over 80 people in the hall and overall well over 100 people came during the two hours.
Spud loved decorating his own cupcake with Little Bell Tent Events
Scatty Aunty enjoying a froyo from Yogart
Spud and H enjoying their Mad Hatters Tea Room’s cupcakes
WaterBaby Pregnancy Care Water
Blissful Baby Gifts
Blacon Children’s Centre (SureStart) also joined us and entertained the little ones with some parachute play. I can tell you know, you need biceps and triceps of steel to waft a parachute about! It’s been over 48 hours since I did it and my arms are still aching.
Also, another extraordinarily lovely lady Lynda Coulter spent her day surrounded by little ones and showed her support from our brilliant local Milk Bank. In fact, would be lovely if they had a few more likes on their Facebook page too ;)
This post was part of the Keep Britain Breastfeeding Scavenger Hunt in June 2012. The Grand Prize Giveaway is now closed as is the Prize Draw to win a Babybeads Necklace as detailed below.
In addition to having your entry added to the Grand Prize, you can also win a Harlequin Jingle breastfeeding necklace from Baby-Beads UK.
We still use the necklace I bought for Pooh Bear and reviewed here when I first started this blog.
To enter, please leave a comment telling me if you have done anything to mark National Breastfeeding Week and if not, what you would like to do next year.
For an extra entry, tweet… ” Its #NationalBreastfeedingWeek #NBAW12 Win with @KeepBritainBF @Scattymumofboys & @babybeads_info http://wp.me/p1Mski-t7 ”
Good luck x
The winner was Cornish Blonde on Twitter as drawn using Random.org.
Here are some fellow bloggers and companies who are also taking part in the scavenger hunt so be sure to visit them for more competitions and interesting posts on breastfeeding…
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- Breastfeeding Friendly Chester – An Update, A Guest Post AND A Competition!!! (lifeloveandlivingwithboys.wordpress.com)
- The Key to Breastfeeding Success (lifeloveandlivingwithboys.wordpress.com)
- The Ultimate Convenience Food – Keep Britain Breastfeeding 2012 (lifeloveandlivingwithboys.wordpress.com)
