Achievements of Coven Mothers Union - January 2023 to December 2023Coven Mothers Union started the year by delivering a mixture of electrical items / clothing and food from the money that we raised during December 2022.The Good Shepherd were really grateful for the goods received and will help so many people.On Saturday 11th March 2023 we held our annual Cuppa and Cake event for The Haven Wolverhampton who support Domestic Abuse Victims . As always this was well supported and St Paul's Church was full to the rafters. It seems that we go from strength to strength with this event and everyone loves coming along to enjoy a beautiful cake and cuppa in a beautiful church and raising so much money for such a good cause. We managed to raise £600.81 which is absolutely fantastic. During February and March we were able to celebrate two big birthdays. Sheryl who is a Mothers Union Member celebrated her 60th birthday and Brenda Rowenhurst celebrated her 80th birthday. Many Congratulations to them both.During Easter Coven Mothers children / grandchildren and the local Mums and Toddlers group made "lambs" to create a beautiful Easter Display within St Paul's Church. Well done to all our little supporters we really appreciate your support.The clever Mother's Union ladies knitted Easter bunny rabbits & carrots and filled them with chocolates. We sold them to family / friends and the local community and managed to raise £203.50 which was amazing. A massive thank you to everyone who supported this. Jan Carr designed an Easter Treasure Hunt around our beautiful village and again this was well supported by the community and we raised £118.50. A grand total of £322 which was simply amazing .We agreed that this money would be donated to Brewood First Responder's. This again was greatly received by Al and his fantastic team.On Monday 8th May 2023 Coven celebrated The Kings Coronation. Coven Mothers Union was heavily involved in this event and we ran the kitchen and the cake stall. We agreed that the money raised from these two areas would be divided equally between St Paul's Church / St Paul's First School and other Mother union charities. Again this was well supported and we were able to present the church and school with £144.83 each and another £144.83 for Mothers Union charities. We also ran the Teddy Tombola stall raising another £73.30 and we sold £122 worth of raffle tickets for The Food / Wine Hamper ( which mothers union had put together as a prize for St Paul's church fete due to take place on 17th June )Therefore a grand total of £629.79p was raised by the Mothers Union Team on the day. Once again we thank everyone who baked cakes / brought raffle tickets and came along and supported this great community event.On the 13th May we took part in our annual Christian Aid Big Breakfast. This was not as well supported as other years in the past but we still managed to raise £90. Every penny counts so thank you to everyone who took part.Coven Mothers Union helped at St Paul's Church Cream Teas / Fete event on Saturday 17th June. We ran the kitchen serving cream teas and organised a "Guess The Number Of Balloons In The Car Competition". Prior to the event members of the Mothers union sold raffle tickets. Members sold £310 prior to the event. £86 were sold on the day and we had previously sold £122 at the Coronation event. Therefore the raffle raised a grand total of £518....plus £43.30 raised from "Guess the number of balloons in the car competition " This again was amazing and thank you to everyone who also baked cakes and attended St Paul's church fete ( They raised a grand total of £1,095 over all )On Saturday 24th June 2023 Brewood Cycle Challenge was taking place and the money raised from this event was going to be split with Brewood First Responders and Brewood Scouts. Al from Brewood First responders contacted Coven Mothers Union asking if we could support them by baking cakes which they could sell. Obviously our reputation is spreading about our cakes and of course members and supporters of the Mothers Union came up trumps and on Friday 23rd June we delivered a car full of home made cakes. Well done to everyone and hopefully enjoyed the race and a good cake to finish.In July 2023 - One of our members grandchildren "Ethan" was taken seriously poorly and was admitted to Birmingham Childrens Hospital for treatment - Thank goodness he has made good progress and wanted to give something back. Ethan carried out a sponsored walk and so Coven Mothers Union decided to sponsor him £50 towards his overall target. Well done Ethan and we continue to hope and pray for a full recovery.On 8th September Coven Mothers Union held a SOS Fashion Show in support of The GEM Centre The Partnering Families Team. This was an amazing night and was well supported.Coven Mothers Union Members worked extremely hard on one of the hottest days of the year putting together a grand buffet and a glass of Prossecco as part of the entry ticket. Members and supporters of the mothers union were models for the evening. Food was donated by Blakemore ( Spar ) Brewood / Pendeford Morrisons and an application was successfully made to the CO-OP Community Fund. Family and Friends donated bottles of Prossecco and Coven Memorial Hall allowed us to use the venue free of charge allowing us to maximise on the amount of money raised from this evening. The evening was a fantastic success and we managed to raise a grand total of £928.92. Coven Mothers Union have brought essential baby items to go into our "MUM BAGS" along with nappies and knitted blankets and baby jackets. These essential MUM bags will be distributed by the NHS team to some of the most vulnerable new mums in the Wolverhampton area. This event was a huge success and we plan to do it again next year. Thankyou to everyone who supported this event. During the weekend of 15th to 17th September 2023 we organised our 2nd Scarecrow Festival. Again after a slow start trying to get people to actually take part we managed to secure 54 scarecrows entries around the village. The actual event was well supported and we kept running out of maps. Thank goodness to members and supporters of the Mothers Union we were able to photocopy more maps for people to purchase. The local community were able to vote for their favourite scarecrows and we also sold cakes from different locations. 1st Place went to the "Brewood Under 9 Lionesses Football Team", 2nd place was the "Adam Family entry" and joint 3rd place was "Monkey Bonazza" and "Jack ". We even had the Express and Star visit us and gave us a great write up on how Mothers Union helps so many vulnerable people and how the money raised would be given to local charities and groups in the local area. We raised a grand total of £625.15 which would be split between The Good Shepherd / Brewood First Responders / Christian Aid / St Paul's First School / St Paul's church / and The overseas mothers union Reading and writing project. Again we would like to thank the local community for their support and we plan to do this again every other year. On the 11th November we had a presentation form Jan Bradshaw and "Pebble" representing the The Guide Dogs For The Blind Association. It was decided that Coven mothers Union would donate £100 towards the fantastic work that they do.Remembrance Sunday - Coven Mothers Union lay a poppy wreath to show our respects ( £25 ) Donated to The British LegionOn the 1st November we delivered a huge box of premature knitting to the Neo-Natel Unit New Cross Wolverhampton. The knitting was done by members and supporters of the Mothers Union. This was greatly received and will help so many premature babies, Thank you to everyone who knitted blankets / cardigans / hats / bonding squares.During our Mothers Union meeting on 23rd November we invited " Hayley Powell senior fundraiser from The Haven Wolverhampton to give us a presentation on how the money we raised from our cuppa and cake event back in March was being used to help so many vulnerable women and children who had been victims of Domestic Abuse. We invited Hayley along as we were all promoting the "RISE UP AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CAMPAIGN" which ran from 25th November to 10th December -Mothers Union members knitted purple and white hearts to represent that 1 in 3 women are victim of domestic abuse at some point during their lifetime. One of our members Jan Carr arranged for the display table where we were able to promote this campaign in St Paul's Church. We continue to promote the campaign and decided to decorate our Mothers Union Christmas tree in Purple and white knitted hearts for the "Coven Christmas Light Switch on " -. This was great publicity and leaflets and posters were displayed promoting Domestic Abuse helplines. "Essential moving in bags" which contained toothbrush / toothpaste / sanitary towels / soap / flannel and deodorant were donated to Hayley at the meeting so that she could pass to victims who may need an "Essential Moving In Bag. On Saturday 25th November at 1.03pm Coven Mothers Union Members held their own personal minute silence with the rest of the world to remember everyone who are victims of Domestic Abuse. As we had so many bottles of Prossecco very kindly donated to us for our fashion show back in September we had some left over, so as a group we decided that we would make them into raffle prizes and members sold raffle tickets to Family and Friends. We made a grand total of £230 which we agreed we would be shared equally between The Good Shepherd and The Overseas Mothers Union Reading and Writing project along with the money also made at The Coven light Switch on which took place on Saturday 2nd December 2023. During this event we raised £125.50p on Teddy Tombola and £123 from our Craft Stall. Total money raised was £478.50p to be split equally between The Good Shepherd and The Overseas Mothers Union Reading and Writing project.Summary of the amount of money raised from events by Coven Mothers Union11th March - Cuppa and Cake Event = £600.811st and 2nd April - Easter Events = £3228th May Kings Coronation = £629.7913th May - Big Breakfast = £9017th June - St Pauls Church fete = £439.308th September - Fashion Show = £928.9215th to 17th September - Scarecrow = £625.152nd December - X-Mas light switch on = £478.50 Total money raised £4,114.47An amazing amount of money raised - We would like to thank everyone who has helped and supported the Coven Mothers Union this year and we have helped so many people.May god bless you all and if anyone is interested in joining Mothers Union our next meeting will be on Thursday 18th January 2024 at 7pm at St Pauls Church Coven or Contact Jo Knight on 07564013668
