So today we hosted high tea for several of our participants and their friends.
We had a bit of a patchy start (the venue seemed to have double booked the space but we were able to negotiate between us). But once it got started it was amazing fun. Several businesses gave gifts from platters to prizes. 4 lucky participants walked away with winnings from the raffle.
No one left hungry.
The best part was that everyone felt welcome.
We can’t wait to hold another event.
This looks like such a lovely gathering! So glad everyone felt welcome and the food looks amazing 
I wish I could’ve been there! Those raffle prizes sound like a nice touch. Great job organizing everything, even with the double booking!
We got very lucky with sponsors. We had a $50 JB HIFI voucher, 2 candle gift packs and a tea gift pack.
So happy to see everyone enjoying themselves. Nothing beats good company, good food, and some fun raffles!
The raffle and the food make this look like such a cozy, welcoming event. Kudos to the team for making it happen despite the hiccups.
Everything looks so elegant and fun! Those little quiches look divine 
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Looks like it was a fantastic day! The food alone is enough to convince me to come… as well as getting to meet you Lauren, of course. Hope everyone had a great time. What was the high tea for??
We had a couple of reasons for the high tea.
Quite a few of our participants and some others we knew had expressed wanting to attend a high tea but hadn’t found one accessible for them.
Some families with high needs participants wanted to attend but were worried about their family members safety. One especially with dementia who had behaviours that have caused venues to ask them to leave.
One participant had managed to go to a high tea with her mother and sister but staff refused to give her a tea cup as they thought she would break it despite her and her family saying she would be fine with it.
Since everyone seemed so keen, we decided to throw our own. We approached community businesses to be sponsors. Put the call out for anyone willing to donate tea party items. We scoured salvos, vinnies and savers for interesting crockery as well. We also did a lot of cooking and some of the attending participants showed off their baking skills too. Spoke to tea and coffee shops and got them on board (tea tonic is amazing by the way, we had 53 flavours of tea to try thanks to them).
Because of all the help and thanks to the venue costs being low, we were able to make it free for all the participants and their family and friends to attend.
We are thinking of having another one in February.
I have to do a little business plug, I’m not affiliated with them in any way but they are just an awesome business.
I have to say the tea tonic people are amazing. After the tea party that they already generously gave to when I purchased goods for it (also after T2 proved to be quite unhelpful), I ordered 2 boxes of the celebration tea (it’s delicious and it starts blue and turns purple when you add lemon). It arrived, and they threw in more freebies for me. I will never say no to more tea.
