Thank you Ferring Village Hall

Classes with Claire Stand at Ferring Village Hall

What a lovely community Ferring is!

New to the area, and only just signed up to run my Spanish classes in Ferring at the Village Hall, I was offered a stand at their Open Day today.

My website wasn’t live, my printer has crashed, but I said yes - it was the first time I’ve taken ‘Classes With Claire’ out to the public, but you have to start somewhere.

The hall has a stage and local drama groups and keep fit of every shape and size were giving their all - so any videos or music was out. But I had post-its, pens, the best fan ever (bought just before I last left Spain) and a whiteboard.

I held a competition for to win a course, and a lady called Jackie won. I’ll contact her later today once I’ve had a sleep. I was awake really early this morning checking that I have everything I needed. I didn’t of course: my business cards and flyers aren’t yet ordered as I still have some classes to arrange and my website really was my priority.

I had a lot of interest in classes beforehand, and Ferring didn’t disappoint at the Open Day….. lthough with so much on offer, I’d be amazed if anyone has the time between making films with the South Down Film Makers, the Ferring Downs WI (yep, you’re even forgiven for swapping my table over!), gardening clubs, theatre groups, history groups, dancing, keep fitting, breathing well…. competition for time and attention is fierce and all stalls looked very professional, putting my whiteboard and games on display to shame!

Despite that, thank you to everyone who made today such a pleasure, from the girl who came and tried out her Portuguese on me (such a lot in common with Spanish) to the lovely ladies who kept us supplied with cups of tea. (And…..ssshhhh….biscuits.)

I’m not sure I put my best foot forward in the company of such professional looking stands, but meeting so many people, and getting a sense of just how lovely Ferring’s community is, it was well worth the rush to get things ready.

My Ferring class (mixed ability) is on a Tuesday morning, but there was some interest expressed in an evening in Ferring. (If you’d be interested let me know.)

I hope Ferring can forgive me the lack of polish, made up for, I hope, with enthusiasm.

Thank you to everyone who entered the competition, to the lovely people who made me feel welcome and, of course, to the team at Ferring Village Hall who worked so hard to make today happen.

(I didn’t get the chance to take pictures of the stands, and din’t want to take pictures of children on the stage without permission, but if you have pictures that are OK to post, feel free to load them up in the comments so others can see.)