Veterans Christmas Dinner 2022

Our final social inclusion action of 2022 was to host our annual veterans Christmas Dinner.

An opportunity to bring together the Veteran community to enjoy a three course meal as well as live music, bingo, a raffle and the yearly gift giving. For the little ones we even had a visit from Santa Claus himself.

This year our event was sponsored by Forces Mutual, the insurance group came forward and offered to fund the whole of the event, a magnificent show of kindness towards the veteran community here at East Durham Veterans Trust.

The build up to the Christmas dinner was all hands to the pump, with all of the staff of East Durham Veterans Trust in work the day before, preparing the veg, cooking the turkey as well all of the table preparation that went into the day. The following day we were blessed with an amazing three course meal.

The dinner itself started with East Durham Veterans Trust trustee David Mckenna showing his skills with the bagpipes, playing some music while the first course came out.

During the day we had a number of presentations and awards given out. Scott Robertson a veteran who represented Ireland in the Wheelchair World Cup was recognized by the veterans trust, as well as awards for the veterans who had taken part in the fishing trips with awards for best fisherman, biggest catch and best endeavour given out to members of our veteran community. The presentations ended with each member of staff at East Durham Veterans Trust being presented with gifts from forces mutual, as well as Flowers from the veterans trust itself.

Finally the new East Durham Veterans Trust mascot ' Veteran Tommy' was presented to the crowd in his first public appearance. Following Tommy, Santa and Mrs Claus ensured all the children in attendance were given their very own gift from Santa.

We are already looking forward to providing another fantastic day for the veterans Christmas lunch in 2023.