Newick Christmas Tree Festival and Market
When: 10am Friday 13 - 5pm Sunday 15 December
Where: St Mary’s Church, Church Road, Newick
‘Tis the season to be jolly and all but more importantly it’s the season for kindness and a time for reflection.
As a youth football club, it’s important to us to uphold our values rather than just writing them down as a sentiment on paper. One of our most important values is respect and we try our utmost to model and encourage this for our players.
This is a continuous theme throughout the year but this time of year seems like the perfect time to ask players and parents to make a positive choice to respect others. And to take this choice forward into 2025.
And what better way to express this than through another wonderful creation for the Newick Christmas Tree Festival, held annually at the beautiful St. Mary's church. Every year we get involved with this fantastic community event and our U13s manager, Jon Tivey, puts his creative hat on to construct a variation on the concept of a Christmas tree with meaning.
This year the theme of the Colts ‘Christmas tree’ entry is ‘Choose Respect’ - an invitation for everyone involved in grassroots football to make a positive choice to respect others, especially in moments of disagreement or challenge.
To represent this Jon constructed a small goal, including an old net destined for the bin, that we are asking Colts players, coaches and supporters to visit and hang an odd football sock or neglected Christmas decoration on over the festival weekend - to celebrate individuality and uniqueness.
The odd sock request is in line with the Anti-Bullying Alliance ‘Odd Socks Day’ in November that marks the start of the annual Anti-Bullying Week. Odd Socks Day celebrates individuality and uniqueness, and the aim is to encourage people to express themselves.
In grassroots football, respect, inclusivity and safety matter just as much off the pitch as they do on it. These values shape a welcoming environment for all, promote fair play and build a foundation of mutual respect.
Inclusivity is an important value to Chailey and Newick Colts as it is about empowering children and young people not to resort to bullying, even when they disagree and to remind adults to lead by example, both offline and online. As a club we are taking this opportunity to empower our young people to do something positive to counter the harm and hurt that bullying causes.
Please take a moment to visit our Safeguarding page to see how we encourage a safe, inclusive and respectful environment for players, coaches and supporters. Values of kindness and acceptance are promoted through our club Code of Conduct.
The Christmas Tree Festival takes place from 10am Friday 13th to 5pm Sunday 15th December at St. Mary's Church in Newick. It is in aid of St Mary’s and St Peter & St James Hospice and there is a festive market taking place on Saturday, with lots of goodies to buy and refreshments.
Thank you to Jon Tivey for all his thought and hard work in producing another fantastic entry for this year's festival and thanks to you all for your continued support. We look forward to seeing the odd socks and decorations added by our players over the festival weekend. Oh, and don't forget to vote for our tree!
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