We live on an idyllic island but sometimes the weather is not very friendly. Last week storm Bert hit. The only boat to the Island was cancelled, many of the planes were cancelled. The weather was terrible, but the intrepid ladies of Inner Wheel braved the elements to hold our annual Christmas Coffee Morning.

This is our main fundraiser, and it involves months of preparation, particularly by our incredibly talented crafters, Julie Manktelow and Janet Alcock who produced quilted, knitted, sewn and handmade original Christmas goodies. We also have some expert bakers who made and decorated all the delicious edibles on the cake stall. The raffle was to behold, we had taken all the donations and put them into themed hampers, such as ‘pamper’, ‘chocolate’ etc. They were wrapped in cellophane and looked spectacular.

We also had a Christmas Hamper, a Manx Hamper and a raffle for an amazing

Christmas cake made by our treasured member, confectioner Lynda Warren. We had other games of chance, a bottle stall, which was extremely popular, a game to find the treasure and many people tried to guess the number of sweets in a jar. Other stalls included beautiful Jewellery and new or nearly new gifts, a chance for people to stock upon Christmas presents.

A brave member of Inner Wheel played the part of the Christmas Fairy and Rotarian Jimmy Thomson created a fantastic atmosphere playing Christmas music. Even more thanks must go to the Inner Wheel ladies who served the tea/coffee, home-made mince pies and shortbread and worked so hard to ensure that everyone had a super time. They also went out of their way to keep those manning the stalls full of coffee!

Many events had been cancelled for this day and our numbers were lower than expected but we all had a brilliant time and raised a substantial amount for the Parkinsons Disease Society IoM.