£1,276 money raised for Cash For Kids

We’ve counted all the generous donations you gave us over the Christmas period, and you helped us raise £1,276 for Wave 105’s Mission Christmas Cash For Kids charity.

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone for your support.

Tinsel, festive hats and Christmas onesies

Thank you for dropping money in our buckets and tapping our card readers while we played Christmas songs outside local supermarkets, garden centres and farm shops.

Thank you if you stopped to listen, requested songs, danced a little, and jingled bells as we played. It was great seeing familiar faces, too, when band members’ family and friends stopped by to cheer us on. We hope we entertained you all during the hectic lead up to Christmas Day.

Casting our memories back, our very first busking session at the beginning of December was soooo cold, the temperature was nearly at freezing point! Mother nature certainly didn’t ease us in gently and we felt like our fingers were either going to stick to our instruments or drop off!

We have to acknowledge some absolutely exceptional Christmas bling from some of our band members. From tinsel and Christmas lights wrapped around our stands, to hats in the form of a Christmas turkey and Santa’s legs coming out a chimney! If we were giving out awards for best dressed, it would without doubt go to our oboe player, Ruth, who surprised us all with her fantastic Christmas onesie outfit!

A Most Wonderful Christmas concert at Wimborne Minster

You also kindly donated towards the Cash For Kids charity collection at our Wimborne Minster concert – thank you.

This was an extra special concert for us, with two guest appearances. Hillbourne Primary School’s choir joined us for a joint performance of Do They Know It’s Christmas, which also featured our band’s very own soloist, Lizzie. It was a huge success. The children, their parents, the audience and our band absolutely loved it.

Band getting one last rehearsal in before our Wimborne Minster concert

As the children excitedly made their way back to their seats, our second guest, Shaun, kicked up the drums. Shaun had kindly donated money in Cash For Kids’ auction – and won the prize of playing the drums with us! He had never played the drums before and he did an outstanding job of keeping the band in time, as we played a bolero version of The Little Drummer Boy. The piece relied on a strong beat right from the opening, and Shaun smashed it.

It’s really important to our band to involve our local community wherever we can. We had a blast sharing the stage with the choir and Shaun. The night was a hit and everyone went home feeling festive, with bellies full of mince pies.

What does the Cash For Kids charity do?

Cash For Kids Mission Christmas is a charity run by Wave 105. It helps disadvantaged children and young people across the UK and aims to give as many children as possible a gift at Christmas when they may not get anything otherwise. The money we raised for them went straight to children in our local area. Thank you everyone.

Check out our band’s Facebook page for more photos and videos of our Christmas activities.

By Emma on flute