Other years the “clients” have all come to the Chichester centre for lunch but in ’09 the Bognor folk wanted to have their lunch in the centre they used every day. Sue, a member of staff there, said she’d be happy to give it a go for the 25+ but “I’ve only got a domestic oven! Can you help?” Gulp! Ring the butcher and alter the order to two 30lb turkeys, boned and rolled, legs separate, a 20lb gammon boned and rolled and cut in two, 4lbs of chipolatas, 3lb streaky and 3lbs back bacon and “yes please we do want the bones.”
Decide that the only way to make life possible for Sue is to cook the turkey, pigs in blankets, stuffing balls and ham, make gallons of gravy and do an “Aunt Bessie” on the potatoes at the Chichester end. Then the sausages and stuffing balls could sit on the floor of the cooker, potatoes on the two shelves and sprouts, carrots and gravy ( and therefore the where with all to heat the meat) on the top. Before you ask Christmas pud did figure in both centres but let’s hear it for the microwave! A vehicle is arranged to transport it all with the lid of the gravy sealed down like Fort Knox.
Every year volunteers come from a very wide area and from all walks of life all happy to do a bit in thanks for their own good fortune of a roof over their heads and a full belly.
Christmas Eve sees volunteers wrapping presents (gloves, toiletries, chocolate etc), entertaining the clients, laying the tables, preparing the vegetables, (even Derek’s favourite the noble sprout takes on a new dimension when you are doing them for 70) attempting to keep the highly temperamental cooker going to cook the turkeys now resplendent with skewers sticking out to help take the heat to the middle the bones being in a large pot producing the best stock in the county, wrapping up the chips in bacon and….well you get the picture. Bacon butties half way through the morning keep everyone from flagging.
Christmas Day and a different team of volunteers to do all the tasks and to help serve the meal; a production line with a server for each of the elements of the meal so that a hot plate rushes along, hand to hand, and out to the tables in the shortest possible time. Every year produces a Washing Up Angel or two who, with every sign of enjoyment, chain themselves to the sink and wade through everything that comes their way.
Boxing Day sees more volunteers to help with lunch and to put all the leftovers into meals that can be put in the fridge and freezer ready to go straight into the oven in the days after Christmas. Nothing is wasted and the soup that is made from the ham stock would be admired even by Delia.
Yet again your kindness helped make the festive season that much brighter for some very disadvantaged people. Thank you.
Mrs M (Katherine Minchen)
Decide that the only way to make life possible for Sue is to cook the turkey, pigs in blankets, stuffing balls and ham, make gallons of gravy and do an “Aunt Bessie” on the potatoes at the Chichester end. Then the sausages and stuffing balls could sit on the floor of the cooker, potatoes on the two shelves and sprouts, carrots and gravy ( and therefore the where with all to heat the meat) on the top. Before you ask Christmas pud did figure in both centres but let’s hear it for the microwave! A vehicle is arranged to transport it all with the lid of the gravy sealed down like Fort Knox.
Every year volunteers come from a very wide area and from all walks of life all happy to do a bit in thanks for their own good fortune of a roof over their heads and a full belly.
Christmas Eve sees volunteers wrapping presents (gloves, toiletries, chocolate etc), entertaining the clients, laying the tables, preparing the vegetables, (even Derek’s favourite the noble sprout takes on a new dimension when you are doing them for 70) attempting to keep the highly temperamental cooker going to cook the turkeys now resplendent with skewers sticking out to help take the heat to the middle the bones being in a large pot producing the best stock in the county, wrapping up the chips in bacon and….well you get the picture. Bacon butties half way through the morning keep everyone from flagging.
Christmas Day and a different team of volunteers to do all the tasks and to help serve the meal; a production line with a server for each of the elements of the meal so that a hot plate rushes along, hand to hand, and out to the tables in the shortest possible time. Every year produces a Washing Up Angel or two who, with every sign of enjoyment, chain themselves to the sink and wade through everything that comes their way.
Boxing Day sees more volunteers to help with lunch and to put all the leftovers into meals that can be put in the fridge and freezer ready to go straight into the oven in the days after Christmas. Nothing is wasted and the soup that is made from the ham stock would be admired even by Delia.
Yet again your kindness helped make the festive season that much brighter for some very disadvantaged people. Thank you.
Mrs M (Katherine Minchen)
