Monday 16th to Sunday 22nd December 2019

About the Festival

  • St Augustine’s has been a part of the community of Rodbourne for over a century.
  • Following on from the success of last year’s WW1 centenary displays, we are hosting our first Community Christmas Tree Festival in the church during December.
  • This festival is about bringing the community together, and we’d love you to get involved.
  • We are looking for individuals, businesses and organisations from our community to sponsor a Christmas tree, by providing the tree as well as decorating it with a theme.
  • Trees will be displayed around the church which will be open for visitors to come (times to be announced) and view them daily between Monday 16th and Sunday 22nd December;
  • We welcome almost 1,500 people through our doors at our major services and events throughout the month, and we would expect this festival to attract even more.

What we’d like you to do:

  • Provide a tree – it can be real (please provide a stand) or artificial and should be five feet or taller;
  • Decorate it with a theme that reflects you, your business, the organisation you are involved with or our community – you can include lights (battery or mains);
  • Get the tree ready in church before the festival begins, and should be in place by 14th December;
  • To make it easy to apply, you can fill in the form online by clicking here.

What will happen at the festival?

  • Each tree will have a sign next to it to let people know who sponsored that tree;
  • Visitors will be able to vote for their favourite tree, with a donation for the winning tree to be given to a charity of the sponsor’s choice, or that organisation if it is a community group;
  • Visitors will also be able to place stars on our memory tree to remember loved ones;
  • Any donations received will be split equally between three local charities and the church restoration fund;
  • The festival finishes with our Carol Service on Sunday 22nd December at 6pm, however the trees will remain in place until after Christmas.  They are available to view at all of our Advent and Christmas services and events.
  • Opening times through the week are: Monday to Friday 12pm – 2pm and 6pm to 9pm, Saturday 9.30am to 11.30am and 2pm to 6pm, Sunday 12pm to 5pm.

We hope that you will be able to support this exciting event, and look forward to hearing from you!