Kinver Rotary Club’s traditional Christmas sleigh tour of Kinver, Enville, and parts of Wollaston and Wall Heath and its visits to supermarkets and local schools have all been cancelled due to the Corona virus.
It was recognised a few weeks ago that the house-to-house collections would not take place, but it had been hoped that Santa could make his usual Saturday appearance at the Aldi stores at Wollaston and Kingswinford (perhaps with the addition of Sundays) and also pre-arranged two-hour evening visits to the KSCA car park. When all these options were discounted members investigated the possibility of organising a non-stop tour of the major roads of Kinver to give children the possibility of a glimpse of Santa.
However, following consultations with the local authorities, Rotary’s own legal teams and the club members themselves, the club has reluctantly decided that the sleigh would not be brought out this year.
Club President Arvind Sharma says: ”We are bitterly disappointed that we cannot do anything with the sleigh this year. A group of members had made all the preparations in the hope that we could stage this much loved event in the run up to the festive season. But we had to make the difficult decision
“Not only will we miss our house to house collections and supermarket visits, we will also not be taking part in other events such as Kinver’s late night shopping initiative and the official switch-on of the Christmas lights at Enville. But even bigger regrets are not being able to bring excitement and pleasure to hundreds of children – and adults – and the fact that we will not be able to distribute thousands of pounds between local charities.”