A huge thank you to all our amazing decorators and to the fantastic choirs who made the 2019 Bedford Christmas Tree Festival another huge success. We can measure the success financially in that it raised an amazing £15,200 to be shared between Bedford Hospital Charity & Friends and St Paul’s Church.

This figure was boosted by the generous sponsorship from Jayne Beard Associates made in memory of Jayne Beard, an immensely respected local business woman and former Chairman of the Bedford Hospitals Charity. Almost more importantly the Festival provided a real ‘feel good’ factor for Bedford in that so many community groups, organisations and schools came together to bring Christmas Cheer to all who came.

The People’s Choice competition, sponsored by Bedford Lions Club was a popular addition this year.  Putnoe Library Knit & Natter group was a very worthy winner but all agreed it was a very hard choice to select just one overall winner. The three lucky winners from the children’s competition, sponsored by Wells & Co, won book tokens from local children’s book store, Rogan Books.

The dates for next year’s Festival are Wednesday 2nd December to Sunday 6th December 2020 and next year’s theme will be “Its Panto!”. If you wish to register your interest in decorating a tree or singing or playing  at the 20th Festival in 2020 then please contact the Chairman, Margaret Oakley (mboakley@hotmail.co.uk)