COULD you imagine…Virtual Easter Bingo at Christmas? No, not many people in Sandford could when the posters first appeared.

On the positive side, it did provide something other than the Pandemic Tier Rules to talk about for a few days and gradually people signed up to join the Zoom “happening” on Saturday, December 5.

It needed to be an "Easter Bingo" because we still had our Easter egg prizes from the cancelled Bingo fundraiser in March.

It needed to be “Virtual” because we are still unable to meet in large groups inside.

It needed to be “fun” because we have all had a difficult year and “fun” has been a bit thin on the ground, and it needed to raise some funds for the Millennium Green and Path as all our planned fundraising events have had to be cancelled this year.

We are thrilled to be able to report that thanks to some generous donations from local businesses and many willing bingo players in Sandford - and beyond - we managed to raise £400 for maintenance of The Green and Path.

It will easily pay for the fencing repairs we have recently done on the Path at the Crediton end.

We not only played Bingo, but we also ran an Art Competition for children, involving three age categories: age five years and under; five to 11; 11 to 16.

The topic was “My Favourite thing on the Millennium Green”, with encouragement to let your imagination fly. The judges for the competition had to work with photographs sent electronically but it all seemed to work well as you can see from the photographs of the winning entries. There were no entries for the Under 5s so two prizes were awarded for the five to 11 category.

Thank you everyone involved - especially Morrisons for the bags for our “Party Packs” and chocolate bar prizes; Peck and Strong for their traybakes; Sandford Orchards for their cider and ginger beer; Sandford Gate Milk for vouchers for their bottled milk (bottles to be refilled at the vending machine at Mole Avon), Sandford Stores for chocolate bars for the children; Stevie B’s for their pasties and Tesco for the prizes for the children’s Art Competition. A Lockdown Success in these challenging times!

Di Martin