13th July 2024
by Cath Adams
At the beginning of the year, we were invited to have a stand at The Albrighton Fayre, the theme of the fayre was going to be space and the organisers wanted to have an astronomical society there.
The organisers put is in contact with Dr Belinda Wilkes, former Director of the Chandra Xray Centre. Belinda kindly arranged for Chandra Xray publicity material to be delivered to us for our stand, as you will see in the photos, the posters are very eye-catching. In addition to the posters, we were sent many things to give away, leaflets, bookmarks and postcards. Belinda was born in Albrighton but sadly was not able to be with us at the fayre, however she will be giving a talk to the Society in November.
Our stand was in a prime location, the organisers provided a large gazebo, tables and display boards for us to use, even the post box joined in the space theme with a beautiful knitted topper of astronauts, rockets and planets.
Steve, Michelle, Damian, Linda and myself arrived to set the stand up, we brought many items along for the display, Michelle kindly brought the planets you can see hanging inside the tent. Linda brought along her wonderful Sunspotter, Orrery and a selection of planet globes which all proved very popular! Mike arrived in the afternoon to help out.
The information table, here we displayed our Society leaflet, The Society for Popular Astronomy’s information leaflet and all the wonderful items sent to us by Chandra Xray.
At the end of the day, there was not much left on the table, visitors were thrilled to be able to take home a selection of items.
Many people were pleasantly surprised to learn our membership fee is £10, we are hopeful that we have recruited a few new members.
I should note the rocks seen here were kindly lent to us by the stall next to us selling crystals, if we had not had those I fear we would have lost a few leaflets!
Steve and Damian took their Solar Scopes and I took my SeeStar S50, sadly there wasn’t much opportunity to use these as it was mostly cloudy but for a short time we did manage some solar viewing, visitors were really happy to see the Sun up close.
On the left is an image captured by my SeeStar S50 in one of the brief breaks in the clouds, on the right is Damian using his Solar Scope.
In addition to the leaflets and bookmarks we also had some other freebies to give away. Michelle made some lovely bracelets with a Moon charm, these proved very popular with children and adults too!
We had a fabulous range of stickers to give out too, Michelle did a sterling job standing outside our stand offering stickers to passers by, this resulted in most people stopping and taking a closer look at our stand.
One of the things we all commented on was the amount of young visitors fascinated by space who knew their stuff! Michelle and I were totally blown away by a young boy, probably only about 7, who asked if we knew why Pluto was no longer a planet, before we could answer he gave us the answer which was spot on!
This photo shows a selection of the stickers and bracelets we were giving away.
No space show is complete without people dressing up! Whilst we ourselves didn’t dress up in costume there were many youngsters who did, and of course the parade itself was space themed.
We were delighted to be joined by characters from Star Wars, who spent the day walking up and down the street, talking to visitors and having their photos taken.
Chewbacca looking deep in thought after reading the information boards at our stand!
Some of the many visitors to our stand.
The Parade
The Band leading the parade along Albrighton High Street.
Who needs the Red Arrows when you can have The Red Barrows!
Brilliant!
There were a huge variety of stands the Albrighton Fayre, many local charities were represented including The Air Ambulance.
Stalls galore selling cakes and gifts, and many stalls with raffles and tombolas.
Probably my favourite stand (apart from ours!) was at the far end of the high street where there were many birds of prey on display which you could hold if you wanted to. Sadly I didn’t have time to queue up for my photo with one, but here are a couple of photos.
All in all, a fantastic day out, we spread the word about Wolverhampton Astronomical Society and hopefully we will gain some new members.