Chester Road

Held on Saturday 25th March, 2012

Chester Road had a neighbourhood BBQ at 5pm on Saturday. Four households near the corner of Westhaven Drive worked together to plan it, and because of the length of Chester Road, limited our invitations to sixteen households of which nine, including the original four, attended. We had seventeen adults and six children.

Originally we had hoped to have it outside the fronts of numbers 50 and 52 as those gardens are reasonably open to the street but, as the weather was uncertain, we had it in the garage of number 52 and no-one complained.

The summit meeting decided that the Big 4 would provide the first course (meat, salads and four bottles of sauce! Well, it was on special!) and ask for a donation towards the meat which everyone agreed to. In the end it seemed easier not to bring the BBQs but to cook the meat at 33 across the road and bring it to 52. It was delicious!

Guests brought beverages and baking for dessert which we had upstairs in the house with tea and coffee. That included a very satisfying amount of chocolate cakes and brownies!! The children were still able to run around outside and we haven't yet solved the mystery of the plastic cup in the Bougainvillea!

Everyone who came enjoyed making contacts with new, and not-so-new, neighbours and seemed to want to do similar events again, hopefully including more who couldn't come.

The Big 4 all made excellent contributions including Alex and Di cooking the meat and onions, John's homemade bread rolls and chutney, Sid's strategic planning and setting up, and Marree the Party Queen who had everything we needed, chairs, disposable crockery and cutlery and lots of good ideas! So no-one had to do too much work (except for those who can't help it!). Thank you to all.

- Jane Durbin