Harehills ❤️ Love

Welcome to the Advent Calendar. Day 4 and the return of something glorious, the Harehills Winter Welcome! Strap in; this is a long one, (I’d best get a cuppa for the podcast recording!)

N.B. The podcast version will be another day. Unfortunately, I am in a noisy environment and can’t wait to get the post up. I’ll shout up once the podcast is available.

One of my favourite entries to the advent calendar last year was the Harehills Winter Welcome, a fantastic event considering it was pulled together in a couple of weeks. Well, it’s back this year, and so many people have put so much effort into this.

It started with the Pre-Winter Welcome event at the Junior Sports Hub we covered on day 2; yesterday, it was the main event.

There were four locations, the Compton Centre at 11:00 – 15:30, the Thackeray Medical Museum at 11:00 – 15:30, then the main event in Banstead park at 16:00 – 18:00, and a warmer event in St Aidan’s Community Hall.

There were activities for everyone, indoor events for those wanting to stay warm, choirs, music, concierge services from Fever FM, singing, poetry reading and speakers, craft activities from card marking for all ages to craft activities for teenagers, and shops provided by Mahogony markets.

There’s a lot to cover, praise, and celebrate – and I’ve only limited space in the calendar, so this will be a long post. It’ll be worth it, though. The choirs may get a mention elsewhere 😉 And yes, if you look at the top, I’ve recorded this in podcast format if you’d prefer to listen to it on the go.

Compton Centre, Harehills Lane – Card-Making Activities

The day kicked off at 11am, with card making in the Compton Centre. There’s nothing so fun as watching kids doing arts and crafts. There were children of all ages,

Mark, the head Librarian for East Leeds, and the Librarian for the Compton Library (and really sorry, I didn’t catch your name), showed the kids how to make their Christmas cards light up with a battery, copper tape, sellotape and an LED bulb.

Never had this when I was a kid – I’d have loved it so much, and it was clear the dozens of kids that attended undoubtedly had lots of fun.

Don’t worry if you missed out; they’ll be doing another session Thursday from 4pm so your young ones can get another chance.

Thackray Medical Museum – So Much…

There was a market provided by Mahogony Market providing stalls in the Thackeray Museum of Medicine. Mahogony Market is a platform providing black-owned businesses opportunities to connect with customers. This was my first experience with Mahagony Market, and it didn’t disappoint.

They had terrific goods for sale by lovely stall holders. I took a particular fancy to this gorgeous-smelling dream oil and a washcloth that blew my mind.

If you didn’t get a chance to get to the market at the Thackray Museum of Medicine, Mahogany Markets will be at Christmas @ The Corn Exchange next Friday (9th December).

Unfortunately, I wasn’t there for the Harmony choir, I wanted to be, but the timing didn’t line up, as I had to be elsewhere. It sounds like it was as joyous and fun as promised, and hopefully, I can hear them next year at something.

While I was at the Museum, I also checked out their craft space. They were making key chains, stained glass and several other stuff. The thing about crafting stuff, it’s for the kids… but it’s so much fun. I was having a go, and there were a couple of police officers having a go. Sometimes it’s the little things, and it’s just fun in a zen-like way.

St Aidan’s Community Hall – Warm Space and Craft Activities (With GetAway Girls Photo Booth)

St Aidan’s Community Hall was opened for a warm space. The downside to December events is they’re chilly, which can be tough on the young and old alike. It wouldn’t be much of a Winter Welcome in summer, so the organisers have made this as fun, inclusive and comfortable as possible for as many people as possible. There was a place to sit in the hall, refreshments with crafts and group activities for fun.

Get Away Girls also brought along their photo booth – I might have had a go with it…

Space2 Leeds was also running a very popular craft table, while FoodCycle and volunteers beavered away in the kitchen making soups and drinks to warm the crowds inside and out.

Banstead Park – Music, Songs and Poetry and the Harehills Christmas Tree

Over in Banstead Park, the tree was lit up, stalls were erected, and a karaoke set up to handle sound duties. Matt and the volunteers from FoodCycle were ferrying drinks and soups, as well as some fantastic bhaji. Pete C (whom I’ve known on Twitter for years but met for the first time today) was on mince pie duty.

It all kicked off with Lokesh and Imrano from Fever FM competing. We had a magic trick going on.

Then Richard Burgon was up to say inspirational things about what he sees in Harehills and how inspiring events like the Harehills Winter Welcome are.

“Though it feels a bit cold in Banstead Park tonight, we are all feeling the warmth […] of the community coming together,” he also spoke about remembering last year’s event and listening to the poetry of people from the area… well Harehills doesn’t like to disappoint.

Over the past few months, there have been a series of creating writing workshops going on, one called Writing Our Harehills, and Breaking Down Barriers has been running one as well.

Both were represented on the day, and I managed to capture some that I’d like to share, first up we had the poets from the Writing Our Harehills, along with Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a fabulously talented spoken and written word poet, that has been working with Writing Our Harehills, who shared some of her own potent words at the end

In the fast-paced world of the internet, 24-hour news, and streaming television, it should be easier to see things from others’ perspectives, but it isn’t always the case. So much gets missed. So it’s truly remarkable to hear other people’s experiences, and perspectives I can’t get myself any other way. These were beautiful, humbling and moving. Thank you so much.

I wasn’t able to catch much of BDB’s stint, I’d hurt my legs and my feet, and I feel really bad because it was all beautiful, hopeful and full of meaning, – but I wanted to share what I did capture, including Adam’s words at the end:

Yes, they’re holding up a Harehills sign because, for the people of Harehills, our area is essential to us, and our young people are proud to live here

These young people from BDB represent everything great about our area, and I’m so glad I got to hear them tell their stories and observations, and I hope everyone else thought the same. These young people are our future, and I think we’ll be in safe hands.

Aside from poetry, we also had music courtesy of two tremendously talented girls from the St Aidan’s Choir (I think they were announced as being from St Aidan’s – my apologies, and a correction if not) and the very talented Ben Greaves singing and playing the guitar.

It was a wonderful event, pulled together by people who sincerely and genuinely cared about the community. If there’s only one thing you take away from this post, or the entire Advent Calendar, it’s that Harehills is a community at its best when it comes together.

I took a fair few photos, about a hundred and eighty of them. Unfortunately, I am neither talented as a photographer nor a good camera for night-time work (long exposure and a vibrant, moving event led to a lot of blurriness). The little thing did its absolute best, but even with a monopod to try and steady, it many are unusable. These are, however, the best of them.

This is a bit of nepotism on my part, as my niece Phoebe, completely unprompted, decided to do a litter pick during the event – and I think that’s wonderful.

The event did have litter pickers, with the brightest torch I have ever seen, to help identify litter in the darkness, and they did an excellent job. It’s essential that we can use public spaces like Banstead Park, but also vital that we protect them and care for our environment.

The Long Thank You Paragraph…

Last, of all, I want to thank everyone involved. From Natalie Tharraleos, who really is a driving force behind so much good stuff that has come and will come to the area, the fantastic Thackeray Museum of Medicine for providing a location, and a lot of the support and organisation, the Compton Centre for lighting up kids faces with joy with their lit up Christmas Cards, the poets and singers for enlightening and entertaining us, to the FoodCycle team that provided food and drinks, (and that vegetable soup was really very nice… I had four cups), to all the volunteers helping set up and marshall the event, to Lokesh and Imrano that compared the event, to our young people that threw themselves in, the volunteers helped put together the excellent goodie bags, to Morrisons that provided mince pies, and to the many people I’m sure I’m missing out on here.

Everyone came together to create an event that brought the community together on a cold winter’s evening to celebrate what it means to be Harehillian (Harehillers? A Harehillite?) I don’t know what the demonym is for people of Harehills, but I know we can be one of the best, most friendly, most sharing communities.

---

You can see all the released Advent Calendar posts here