Below is an article about this community association, together with it’s history, kindly provided by the WCCA committee:

The Whitchurch and Creslow Community Association (WCCA)

The WCCA’s mission is to organise events that bring the community together, and to help other village organisations for the good of the community. We aim to make our activities affordable and accessible, and to offer something for all.

The group was formed in 1978, shortly after the village got together to commemorate the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. After a period of inactivity, WCCA was revived in 2000 to organise the local millennium celebrations, and (except for a pandemic-enforced break in 2020) has been active ever since.

For many years the highlight of WCCA events was the annual May Feast, with its fancy dress parade, maypole dancing, dog show, teas and cakes, and the crowning of the May Queen. In recent years, the Feast has been reinvented as the Village Fun Day, a smaller but no less enjoyable event. The 2019 Fun Day marked the WCCA’s 40^th anniversary, with live music, displays and demonstrations from local groups, games and stalls, a magic show, and a delicious barbecue.  

Bonfire Night in November is another high point of the village year. The WCCA has been wowing audiences with its firework displays for over 10 years.

Bonfire Night, 2018

A typical WCCA year would also see us putting on other events such as gin tasting, open gardens, and Easter Egg bingo – and when there is a major celebration, like the Diamond Jubilee in 2012, we try to bring the community together to enjoy the day. Sadly, 2020 was not a typical year, and all WCCA events, including the planned VE Day celebrations, were cancelled with the arrival of Covid-19. The committee looks forward to making up for lost time with events pencilled in for the second half of 2021 and into 2022 – watch this space!

All funds raised through ticket sales are put back into the community – through the organisation of further events, or by providing subsidised tickets to other activities (the Christmas panto in Aylesbury is always a hit!). The WCCA will also consider requests for grants of up to £500 from other village organisations; requests must be for the benefit of Whitchurch and Creslow residents, and should be made in writing to the Secretary.

The WCCA is run by a small but enthusiastic committee. The committee is currently lacking a Chairperson – if that could be you, do get in touch!  In the meantime, we are ably led by a Secretary and supported by our book-keeper.

New faces and ideas are always welcome. Do come and join us on the committee, or let us know if you’d like to help out at an event  – we’d love to hear from you.

And last, we need to say a big thank you to everyone who supports our events – by coming along; by offering their premises, garden, or home to host events;  by giving up their time to organise, cook, deliver leaflets and tickets; and by helping out on the day by manning a stall, collecting on gates, serving teas and coffees, or packing away. Without your help we could not continue to plan events for our community.

If you would like more information – or to share your ideas or join the committee –  please contact

WCCA Secretary – Amanda Tofield – ac.tofield@gmail.com

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After a long time of Covid restrictions, WCCA held a Cream Tea Event in 2021, and it was enjoyed by many villagers wishing to see their friends and neighbours again. Here is the original poster, by way of historic detail!

Whitchurch & Creslow Community Association

Invite you to join us for a 

Cream tea

With Bubbles 

Are you new to the village?

Would you like to get to know more people?

Feel like you have lost touch during the pandemic?

Or just fancy a catch up with old and new friends?

If the answer to any of the above is YES 

Then join us, it’s FREE!

Sunday 5th September 2021

St John’s Hall, Church Lane – 3 pm to 5 pm  

  RSVP by 3rd September 2021 to 

       lucy@lyncroftmarketing.com   

  or 0771 145 9559

   So, we know how many to cater for. See you there! 

https://e-voice.org.uk/whitchurchbucks/assets/other/queen-s-90th-birthday

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Whitchurch and Creslow Community Association
 
May Feast 2015 

What a difference a day makes – on Sunday 3rd May the rain poured down Oving Road in torrents as the clouds burst and the thunder rolled, yet only one day later on Monday 4th May this seemed like a distant memory when the May Queen (Sarah Smethurst) led her parade at the Whitchurch May Feast before the Morris Men and Maypole dancers danced in the spring sunshine – what better way can there be to spend a sunny May Day afternoon in Whitchurch!

Thank you to all those Whitchurch residents who attended this year’s Feast – we really hope you enjoyed yourselves. It was fantastic to see so many villagers of different ages taking part in the wide range of events on offer: the Jungle themed fancy dress parade (who knew there were quite so many elephants in the congregation at St John’s?), the dog show, the children’s races, the tug of war, the colouring competition (won by Emily Meikle) and the Umbanda jungle drumming workshop. This is exactly what the May Feast is all about!

The WCCA would also like to take this opportunity to thank a number of organisations and individuals who contributed significantly to this year’s Feast. Once again we are very grateful to NFU Mutual Aylesbury for printing the programmes, to Unique Pets and Fish4dogs for providing prizes for the increasingly popular Dog Show, to Hyatt Studios for donating a fantastic photographic prize (won by Fiona Gore), to Woburn Safari Park for a family pass given to the winner of the colouring competition and to the pupils and staff of Whitchurch Combined School for their contribution to so many aspects of the event. However, perhaps our greatest thanks this year should go to Whitchurch’s oldest resident – Dick Reeves – who opened the Feast and judged all the competitions so splendidly.

We are also very pleased to report that for many village organisations and charities this year’s Feast once again proved particularly successful financially. An important objective for the May Feast is that it should enable local organisations to raise much needed funds and it is great when this is achieved effectively. As always, any surplus made from running the Feast by the WCCA itself will be used to support village projects and to provide funding for future events (please let us know if you have any suggestions about how WCCA funds should be spent to support the community here in Whitchurch).

Report supplied by Jeremy Sampson

If anyone has any other photos about the event which they would like entered please contact the editor at editor@whitchurch.org.

May Feast 2014

No rain for the second year in succession – can this really be the Whitchurch May Feast? – clearly our great weather guarantee is more robust than we imagined! We are delighted to report that once again the May Feast celebrations at the Recreation Ground took place in pleasant spring weather and that the May Queen, Morris Men and Fancy Dress Parade were able to take full advantage of the conditions – the Whitchurch School Maypole Dancing drew an especially big crowd this year.

Thank you to all those Whitchurch residents who attended this year’s Feast – we really hope you enjoyed yourselves. It was fantastic to see so many villagers of different ages taking part in the wide range of events on offer: the fancy dress parade, the dog show, the children’s races, the tug of war, the colouring competition and the drumming workshop (who knew so many of you had such great rhythm!). This is exactly what the May Feast is all about – the Whitchurch community coming together to have fun!

We are also very pleased to report that for many village organisations this year’s Feast was particularly successful financially. An important objective for the May Feast is that it should enable local organisations to raise much needed funds and it is great when this is achieved effectively. As always, any surplus made from running the Feast by the WCCA itself will be used to support village projects and to provide funding for future community events.

If you have any comments about the Feast; what you liked, didn’t like or would like to see included instead, please let us know – we are your Community Association.

We hope to see you at our ‘Open Gardens’ event on Saturday 21st June. (See below)

The WCCA Committee.

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WHITCHURCH AND CRESLOW COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION

WHITCHURCH OPEN GARDENS 214

In aid of Medical Detection Dogs & WCCA

Saturday, 21st June 2014

2 – 5 p.m.

Come and enjoy a blooming marvellous day visiting beautiful gardens in Whitchurch

Programmes £3 – to include tea & a slice of cake!

Children under 12 free

Separate refreshments available

Get your programmes on the day at

The Legion Hall, Oving Road, Whitchurch, HP22 4JF

For more information please contact Andrea – 01296 641586

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Whitchurch and Creslow Community Association 

May Feast 2014

Calling all Aliens and Astronauts! 

The May Feast is only a month away and preparations are in full swing – including the traditional prayers from the committee for some dry weather! The theme for this year’s Feast is ‘Space’ and there are to be a number of associated competitions.

Students from Whitchurch School are to take part in a colouring competition for which there will be a prize for every year group, as well as an engraved cup presented to the overall winner on the day itself. The competition is to be judged by a local ‘artist’ and all the entries will be used to decorate the marquee at the Feast. Come and see their masterpieces – they will be ‘Out of this World’!

There is also to be a slight change to the arrangements for Fancy Dress at this year’s event. Inspired by photographs and film of ‘May Feasts past’ (which are to be shown at the Whitchurch Historical Society’s ‘Oh Happy Days’ evening on the 12 April), we are holding a Space Fancy Dress Competition open to entrants of all ages. There will not only be prizes for children and village groups in the parade, but also for best male and female adult, as well as for best whole family entry. Why not join in? It will be great fun and you will help to re-invigorate a Whitchurch tradition; large numbers of villagers (and their pets!) used to dress up for the Feast in years gone by and it would be great to see this happen again.

On a related note, the WCCA Committee would like to thank the residents of Ashgrove Gardens for their continuing support of the May Feast, as they once again welcome over 1000 ‘Feasters’ on their annual pilgrimage to the Recreation Ground.

We hope to see you all at the Feast on Monday 5th May (12-4pm) – remember if Sandra Bullock and George Clooney can look glamorous in Space, so can you!

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 Whitchurch Open Gardens – Sunday, 30th June 2013

The sun shone (for the second time on a WCCA event in 2013!), the flowers bloomed, the gardens looked wonderful and the cakes were delicious – what better way could there be to spend a glorious June afternoon?  So thought over 100 people who visited the WCCA Open Gardens 2013 and by doing so helped raise a surplus of £300 to be split equally between Macmillan Cancer Support and the Community Association – we are extremely grateful.   

We are also especially grateful to all those in Whitchurch who opened their gardens – their generosity is much appreciated and their hard work was clearly evident in the beauty of the gardens on the day.  

For those who were not able to attend on the day two sets of photographs are available here and here as well as a video.