Petworth Community Craft Group announces last trading day

Tricia Stephens, from the group, said: “There will be treats for everyone. The following week we will be clearing the shop and from the end of the year PCCG will be no more.”

Tricia has enjoyed leading the group through various highs and lows, but there have always been opportunities, challenges and achievements. She will miss is but all good things come to an end.

Since PCCG started at the beginning of 2018, skills have been learned and shared, friends have been made and much coffee has been consumed.

She said: " Businesses have sponsored the workshops in the Warehouse at the Coultershaw Heritage site and the local community has been amazing in donating materials for us to use and items to sell. We even branched out into competitions, raffles, tombolas and ‘pre-loved’ sales - the later raising extra funds for the Sylvia Beaufoy Centre. All this fitted with our mission to use unwanted, previously used and natural materials wherever possible and to sell what we made to raise funds for local charities."

In its first year it raised £1000 for Petworth Community Garden and in 2019 it was more than £2,500 for the Sylvia Beaufoy Centre.

During 2020 lockdown meant crafts fell by the wayside and in 2021 there were still no workshops but a few of the members met outside in the summer for coffee, cake and stitching.

Then Fete in the Square – a wonderful event where the whole community and organisations came together for the first time in more than 18 months. PCCG had a stall in Lombard Street and boosted funds for the Sylvia Beaufoy Centre by over £300.

Sylvia said: "The most significant opportunity – one which we could not miss – was an empty shop in a prime position in the centre of town. Laura and Chris Woodham very generously allowed us to use the shop window to display some of our crafts and to raise more awareness of the group and our sponsors. Since the end of September, with Laura and Chris’s blessing and P&DCA insurance agreed, we opened the ground floor for selling to the public – a pop-up shop.

"This has been such fun with a core of volunteers spending many Saturdays helping and the same core knitting, sewing and stitching to keep the shop stocked. We are on track for the shop to have raised in the region of £2000.00 for the Sylvia Beaufoy Centre by the time we close and we are exceedingly pleased with this – with no expenses. In addition there will be other moneys to donate to SBC as the group is wound up. News of total amount in the New Year.

"It will be impossible to thank everyone individually but special thanks to Tony Sneller, Chair of Petworth & District Community Association, who had faith in our idea and took PCCG under his wing as part of P&DCA. This gave us charitable status, insurance and a treasurer to take care of the money. Without all this we could not have functioned in the same way. Naturally many thanks to all the volunteers, businesses who sponsored us and members of the community who have kept us stocked with materials and bought the end products. Last but not least, Laura and Chris Woodham who, by means of their shop, have enabled us to retire in style. They have also sponsored our workshops from the start."

Maggie South will be taking the group forward from 2022, it will be a different form and under a different name but will have coffee and any crafting members might like to do, but will not make items to sell.