Fete-ful day for Villa Maria

Press, 9 October 1987, Page 22

Fete-ful day for Villa Maria

Early tomorrow morning, while most of Christchurch still sleeps, the Villa Maria P.T.A. will be up and about, transforming green and pleasant playing fields into fairgrounds for the day. The tents which will hold most of the stalls will already be up — the P.T.A. learnt their lesson last year, when fete enthusiasm was dampened by heavy rain — but there are still pony rides to organise, stalls to set up and a great deal of goods to be sorted and arranged before 10.30 when the gates open. The Villa Maria College fete has become quite a Christchurch tradition. It has been held on the second Saturday in October for well over 30 years, and the headmis-

tress, Sister Mary Hanrahan, can’t remember a time when it hasn’t been a success. Despite the wet weather, last year’s fete raised a gross total of about $13,000 and yielded an estimated profit of $ll,OOO. The fete is organised and administered by the P.T.A., who take care of the large stalls — cakes (which come in by the hundred every year), sewing, white elephant and delicatessen. They also run the ferris wheel and the Noddy train. But there is no lack of pupil participation, either. Every class is responsible for a stall, and they span an imaginative spectrum from gingerbread families, sausage sizzles and toasted sandwiches to raffles, lotto-like

numbers games and second-hand books to clowns, pillow-fights and mouse races. Entertainment of a different sort will come from the Air Force Band, whose skills have been recruited for the day along with those of a Christchurch folk group. By late Saturday afternoon it should be all over — fete-accompli. The tents will come down, the stalls will be dismantled and the left-over goods taken away (a small task, if other years are anything to go by). The teachers, pupils and P.T.A. will be left to clean up the mess and have the Villa Maria playing fields looking green and pleasant again for Monday. And, of course, to count their moneys