[Cynthia Claydon]

Last night we had a party at the Community Centre in Market Harborough to celebrate the making of our 5,000th bag, which we presented to Heather Jacks, from the Great British Sewing Bee.

We were joined by members past and present – Jacqueline, Mary D, Mary G, Eunice, Rona, Joan L, Connie, Claire, Abigail, and new member Joan T, as well as members of the Environment Group, Councillor Phil Knowles and Mrs Knowles, Rosie from Offcuts, and our friends from Waitrose, who have been making bags from old Waitrose uniforms.

Richard Boyes wrote a special poem for the celebration, entitled “Mors Code”:

Our aim is breaking down the barriers
To rid the town of plastic carriers
By making bags of spare material
With brash designs or just ethereal,
Whether they have some dots or dashes
Or floral prints with purple splashes
That’s made of linen, jute or cotton
From remnants you may have forgotten.

Heather selected a winner from our photo competition – her favourite photo was of Margaret, who had taken Morsbags to Sierra Leone to deliver Bibles, and she entered a photo of herself with the Archbishop. I will try to get a copy of the photo to show you.

Here are the pod members with Heather Jacks:

[Cynthia Claydon]

Ah, I see the photo doesn’t show up properly, but the Forum won’t let me edit the post as it says I’m “not allowed”, even though I just created it!

I’ll have another go at adding the photo:

[Elaine]

Great to come along and help celebrat, what an achievement! Community spirit at its best, why I love living in Harborough.

[beattie]

What a great event!! I LOVE the poem, I love the banner in the photo (glad you managed to post it) And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the people at Waitrose making bags out of old uniforms!! Fantastic, all of it! 😀

PS Please can I copy and use the poem at morsbags events?

[Cynthia Claydon]

Hi Beattie, it’s fine to use the poem – Richard will love it if it gets used! He’s a man full of ideas – he comes up with lots of slogans for us to use in our publicity material, he’s drawn a lovely landscape scene with fabric pens on one of our display bags, and he’s currently trying to get his local postie to use a Morsbag to keep all his spare rubber bands in, rather than dropping them as litter. He also lends us his gazebo for outdoor events. We are lucky that as well as stitchers we also have other pod members who do all the “extra” things!

[beattie]

Thanks Missy G and thanks to Richard too 😀

You’re right, it takes all sorts of skills and input to make a successful pod – sewing the bags is just one part of that. Well done everyone associated with Harborough Hitbags

[offcuts]

It was a wonderful evening and so lovely to see Harborough Hitbags achieving so much. The Waitrose connections is fab and I am hoping to involve the other Leicestershire Waitrose’s with the help of Elaine. This is the first supermarket to embrace what we are trying to achieve. I was hoping you would post the poem. As Claire said the pod members with different skills and interests that make the morsbag thing work. I have a few more photos.

@Claire, would you mind posting about the evening on Facebook morsbags.com Leicestershire so all the other pods can see what you have achieved. So that is 2 contestants from the Sewing Bee that know about morsbags – Tamara and Heather. That has got to be a good thing! Onwards and upwards Harborough Hitbags! I think you could be in second place this time next year! Hope the 2000 labels and threads will be of use for that! 😉

[Agwen]

Congratulations on your 5,000 bags. Looks like a good time was had by all.
I like the poem too, makes me smile.

[Author]

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