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Latest revision as of 15:04, 21 September 2025

Welcome to the Sittingbourne Christmas Lights and Sleigh Rounds "knowledge base" wiki.

This wiki is intended to collect information on how to organise our activities for our volunteers but we hope that it may also be useful to other volunteer groups across the country.

Main Activities

Our group of volunteers organises and fund-raises for three main activities:

Installing and removing the Christmas Lights in Sittingbourne High Street
The Christmas Lights Switch On Day event with entertainments and associated festivities.
The Father Christmas Sleigh Rounds which visit residential parts of Sittingbourne and the surrounding villages, bringing music and Christmas cheer to families.

Smaller Activities

We also run a few smaller activities:

We present a trophy for the house with the best exterior Christmas lights, called the Residential Gardens Competition.
We hold a thank you gathering for all our volunteers and anyone who has given us any kind of support, which usually takes place in early February.
As of 2024 Santa and our sleigh have participated in Sittingbourne Carnival in August, with the theme of Santa being on holiday and wearing beach clothes along with his Santa hat and beard instead of his normal costume.
As of 2025 we are organising our first "Santa Run" in central Sittingbourne, planned for Saturday 13th Dec 2025.

Our activities benefit all sorts of people and cover large parts of Sittingbourne and the surrounding area and villages.

The main pages so far:

Management Committee. The group of volunteers responsible for organising all the activities.
Switch On Day
Switch On Day Letter to Residents
Lights Installation
Residential Gardens Competition
Sleigh Rounds
Santa Sleigh
Collection Licence for Sleigh Rounds. Apply to Swale Borough Council for this.
Unmetered Supply Certificate. This is needed to apply for the street column attachment licence. It is needed to pay an energy supplier for the unmetered electricity taken from street light columns. In south east England this can be obtained from the UMSO contact at UK Power Networks.
Streetlight Attachment Permit to attach Christmas lights to street lights in Sittingbourne High Street. Apply to Kent County Council for this.
Grants and Fundraising
Supporter Information

@@ Line 3: / Line 3: @@
 Welcome to the Sittingbourne Christmas Lights and Sleigh Rounds "knowledge base" wiki.
-Our group of volunteers organises and fund-raises for:
+This wiki is intended to collect information on how to organise our activities for our volunteers but we hope that it may also be useful to other volunteer groups across the country.
-# The Christmas Lights in Sittingbourne High Street
+===Main Activities===
-# The Christmas Lights Switch On Day event with entertainments and associated festivities.
-# The Father Christmas Sleigh Rounds which visit residential parts of Sittingbourne and the surrounding villages, bringing music and Christmas cheer to families.
+Our group of volunteers organises and fund-raises for three main activities:
+# Installing and removing the [[Lights Installation | Christmas Lights]] in Sittingbourne High Street
+# The Christmas Lights [[Switch On Day]] event with entertainments and associated festivities.
+# The Father Christmas [[Sleigh Rounds]] which visit residential parts of Sittingbourne and the surrounding villages, bringing music and Christmas cheer to families.
+===Smaller Activities===
+We also run a few smaller activities:
+# We present a trophy for the house with the best exterior Christmas lights, called the [[Residential Gardens Competition]].
+# We hold a thank you gathering for all our volunteers and anyone who has given us any kind of support, which usually takes place in early February.
+# As of 2024 Santa and our sleigh have participated in Sittingbourne Carnival in August, with the theme of Santa being on holiday and wearing beach clothes along with his Santa hat and beard instead of his normal costume.
+# As of 2025 we are organising our first "Santa Run" in central Sittingbourne, planned for Saturday 13th Dec 2025.
 Our activities benefit all sorts of people and cover large parts of Sittingbourne and the surrounding area and villages.
-This wiki is intended to collect information on the organisation of all the activities, for the use of volunteers in this group but also other volunteer groups across the country.
-The author hopes that this might one day be of use for other voluntary groups throughout the UK who are planning to organise Christmas Lights and other public events.
 The main pages so far:
@@ Line 20: / Line 31: @@
 * [[Switch On Day]]
 * [[Switch On Day Letter to Residents]]
+* [[Lights Installation]]
 * [[Residential Gardens Competition]]
 * [[Sleigh Rounds]]
+* [[Santa Sleigh]]
 * [[Collection Licence for Sleigh Rounds]]. Apply to Swale Borough Council for this.
 * [[Unmetered Supply Certificate]]. This is needed to apply for the [[Street Column Attachment Licence | street column attachment licence]]. It is needed to pay an energy supplier for the unmetered electricity taken from street light columns. In south east England this can be obtained from the UMSO contact at UK Power Networks.
@@ Line 27: / Line 40: @@
 * [[Grants and Fundraising]]
 * [[Supporter Information]]
-{| class="wikitable"
-|+ Permits required
-|-
-! Name !! Obtain from !! Date needed by
-|-
-| Streetlight Attachment Permit || Kent County Council || Technically at least 6 weeks before the lights are put up (not the switch on date)
-|-
-| Public performance licence (PPL/PRS) for switch on day || PPLPRS || Before Switch On Day
-|-
-| Public performance licence (PPL/PRS) for sleigh rounds || PPLPRS || Before start of sleigh rounds
-|}
-Welcome to your new wiki! You may find the following link useful: [[mw:Help:Contents|Help:Contents]] on mediawiki.org.