Pumpkin Fair Information
This year's fair will be on Saturday 27th September 2025
Entry charges are:
Adults £3.00
Concessions £2.00
4-16s £1.00
Under 4s Free
Our theme for 2025 is Michaelmas - many of our competitions and displays will be linked to this theme.
Our beneficiaries for this year are:
Ely Baby Bank: Supporting families. Supporting the planet.
We are delighted that Ely Baby Bank has been chosen as a beneficiary of the 2025 Soham Pumpkin Fair.
Who we are
Ely Baby Bank is a community-led project offering free baby essentials to anyone who needs them. Whether you're facing short-term challenges, navigating the cost of living, or simply trying to reduce waste and be more sustainable, our doors are open to everyone. There's no judgement, no criteria, and no referral needed. Just practical support, compassion, and a helping hand when it's needed most.
What we offer
We provide families with pre-loved and new essential baby items like nappies, formula, wipes, clothes, prams, cots, toys, and more. Beyond the supply of baby items, we offer friendship, community, and connection. Every Thursday morning, our cafe provides free coffee, cake, and a warm welcome. It's a chance for parents and carers to chat, share experiences, and simply take a breather - whether you're picking up items or just popping in for a slice of cake and a smile.
Why it matters
Every year, thousands of baby items go to landfill while other families go without. Ely Baby Bank helps close that gap, offering a circular, environmentally-conscious solution that benefits both people and the planet.
By reusing and recycling children's items, we:
- Reduce unnecessary waste
- Lower the environmental impact of raising young children
- Promote a culture of sharing and community care
Why the Pumpkin Fair means so much
Being selected as a beneficiary of the Soham Pumpkin Festival 2025 is a huge honour. This joyful, creative event is more than just a celebration of autumn - it's a show of community spirit and collective kindness. The funds and awareness raised will help us:
- Restock essentials like formula, nappies, and toiletries
- Maintain our storage and sorting facilities
- Reach more families, more efficiently, across our region
Find out more at www.elybabybank.com
Follow us on Facebook to see how your support makes a difference www.facebook.com/elybabybank.
Arthur Rank Hospice Charity
Arthur Rank Hospice Charity supports people in Cambridgeshire living with an advanced serious illness or other life-limiting condition and those who need end-of-life care. Our 'Outstanding' services support approximately 3,800 patients and their families annually helping people to make every moment count.
It will cost over £13 million to run our services in 2024/2025. Contracted services from the NHS are budgeted at £7.9 million and with the help of our community, we need to raise a further £5.1 million through donations, fundraising activities, retail sales, the Education and Conference Centre and Bistro.
For further information, please visit arhc.org.uk
Sarah Clayton
Community Fundraising
07787835163
Usual working hours: Monday 8-2 Tuesday 8.30-4.30 Wednesday 8-12.30 and Friday, 8-12.30
VCAEC Helping Hands Gardening Scheme
The project was set up in 1996 to provide a voluntary gardening service to people who would not otherwise be able to get the work done.
It was awarded the Queens Award for Voluntary Service in 2007.The gardening scheme is run by a paid supervisor and 9 volunteers.
The scheme not only assists people who can no longer tend to their gardens but also helps the volunteers who may not be in work for a variety of reasons. We have recently assisted one volunteer into paid employment.
We have a mixture of regulars (mainly grass cutting), and one offs which are usually garden clearance. We have assisted several residents of Soham in recent months. On average we carry out 256 tasks per annum ranging from small grass cutting jobs to complete garden clearances which can take two or three days to complete. The volunteers offer around 1,835 hours per annum to help others tend to their gardens.
All our compostable garden waste is delivered to a local third party vegetable grower who turns the waste into compost which is then recycled onto his farmland to support his growing crops. We require funding to enable us to be able to offer free gardening assistance. At the moment we need to ask for a donation to cover our costs. Those individuals who need our help the most are not usually able to pay and therefore are at risk of being preyed upon by unscrupulous individuals who target those with an overgrown garden.
According to information contained within www.Cambridgdeshireinsight.org.uk East Cambs has several villages which fall into the 6 Decile or under for areas of deprivation. It has the highest density of those aged over 70 compared to the whole of Cambridgeshire.
It costs VCAEC £22,176 to run the scheme at the moment. With the increase in the minimum wage and the NI this will undoubtedly increase our outgoings considerably, which was a totally unforeseen cost this time last year.
The Helping Hands Gardening Scheme tends to 22 gardens in Soham and has one volunteer who resides in Soham.
2nd Soham Rainbows & Brownies
The same leaders run both of these groups one straight after the other on a Monday and often do things together so the girls get to make a wider circle of new friends. With that said we would like to be able to offer our 2 groups more of these type of activities e.g. a visit to South Angle Farm Park, a visit from a circus skills workshop, Salsa, Ballet ,Tap dancing specialists and STEM outreach days to name a few of our plans.
We have tended to move away from day trips due to the costs of coaches so would like to provide more things locally.
We also would like to purchase some P.E. style mats that the girls can use to sit on the floor with and also use as an extra layer when we have our sleepovers in the building. We are a non-profit organisation and rely on our amazing volunteers to fundraise to provide these extras for the girls, although they do pay a termly subscription this does not cover the ever-increasing costs of insurance, hall fees and running the weekly meetings. If we were able to at least subsidise some of these activities we would be able to provide more for the girls and their families that may not always be able to access them, hopefully giving them enjoyable life-long memories.
In the summer term, 2nd Soham Brownies have been learning Spanish, French & German while working on our Languages Badge.
We had a visit from a Bee Keeper who gave us an informative talk, show us his bees and let us taste some delicious honey. We made a life cycle of a Bee & painted a Bee hive for our gardens.
We joined with all the other Rainbows, Brownies and Guides in the district for a fun games evening and finished off our busy term with an amazing water games night!
We are now looking forward to our Halloween Pack Holiday in October.
Soham Pumpkin Fair Website designed 2012 by SPF Committee
SPF_Fair_info.html Version 30.0 by Roy Pallett 14th September 2025
Drop Down Menu Design © 2007 stunicholls.com