The present Covid 19 crisis meant that the annual Open Gardens day organised by Stockport Lamplighters would have to be cancelled. Or would it ?
Organisers Carol Cross and Martyn Griffiths put their heads together and came up with the idea of a virtual event.

The original plan was for the owners of each of the twenty two gardens to take photos which Martyn would put to music on the Open Gardens web site.

Then another group, Sustainable Living in the Heatons, came along and asked to work with Lamplighters on the event, which changed tack slightly.

Carol wrote to all Estate agents in the Heatons asking if they would help sponsor the costs of professional videos to be taken of four of the gardens. Only one replied but along with SLH they met the costs. And the event was re born again in another slightly different way.

Over one hundred people signed up to a Zoom event on the day the gardens would actually have been opened, 17 th May.............the day that Zoom experienced world wide technical difficulties !!
However most people managed to get into Zoom to listen to a talk on “Gardening for Wildlife “ by Paul Lowis, the Chair of SLH

After this session viewers were diverted to You Tube to see the musical photo display and the four videos.

Once again Lamplighters overcame adversity and the day ended up a huge success with many donations and complimentary e mails received by the Club.

Phew !

We’d love other Rotarians to look at our photos and videos at www.heatonsopengardens.net