Club Wilber’s 3rd Birthday Party

On the 4th August, Club Wilber celebrated its 3rd birthday party at The Marriott Hotel in York and it was amazing to meet to celebrate this wonderful occasion.

It was great to welcome our Club Wilber ambassador Will Jubb from York City Knights Rugby Club who came to support this event along with some of our wonderful sponsors.

Guests were welcomed with a glass of Prosecco or fizzy elderflower as they arrived to the book themed party.  The room was decorated with The Jungle book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland decorations.

Everything was geared to be a sensory experience, on The Jungle Book craft table we made beautiful leather notebooks.  The leather had a lovely smell, and each piece had a different texture.  The parents then helped the children bind the paper between the leather using specialist metal studs and they enjoyed using the screwdrivers to tighten the studs.  They finished them off nicely with animal stickers and gems and some did great drawings inside them too.  We had lots of animal balloons hiding in the jungle watching us from above.

The special guest was one of our ambassadors, the award-winning author, Christina Gabbitas.  She came to read two of her books to the children.  She was amazing, giving the characters voices and singing songs she delighted the children.  The children were engaged and got to feel different fruit and vegetables mentioned in the book, tomatoes, broccoli, pineapple and even a dragon fruit!  She quoted a poem too and the children loved joining in.  We thank her for a wonderful opportunity to hear her stories.  These can be found online on her website www.christinagabbitas.com.

Alice in Wonderland’s Mad Hatter’s Tea Party was the theme for the afternoon tea.  With wonderful decorations for the table which consisted of a Mad Hatters hat, a white rabbit, and clocks… lots of clocks, the caterpillar on a giant toadstool, even the Cheshire Cat was watching us from above.  Everyone enjoyed afternoon tea with scones with jam and cream, sandwiches, sausage rolls, crisps, biscuits, and lots of “drink me” squash.

Samantha Scholey who was the founder of Club Wilber gave a speech and thanked everyone for their support and coming to celebrate with us, especially the sponsors who joined in the fun. We sang happy birthday to Club Wilber and enjoyed a delicious rocky road birthday cake.

The final game was a sensory pass the parcel.  Each layer was a different textured material.  Sweets and scented lavender were between the layers with a box of fidget toys as a main prize for the two lucky winners.

Everyone who attended got a golden ticket which was labelled “golden ticket” in Braille.  They took these to the Willy Wonka sweet table to claim their going home sweets and popcorn.

Everyone had a great time, and it was great to see the families have fun together.  Club Wilber continues to grow bigger and better each year and we look forward to a year ahead full of activities.

We want to say a big thank you to everyone who came – our ambassadors, sponsors and of course our Club Wilber families.

If you would like to volunteer and help us out with these amazing events then please check out our Volunteers Page.