It was time once again for our annual spot of getting lost around the streets of Woodthorpe as we joined forces with the York Rotary group and helped Santa spread some festive cheer whilst raising money for York Mind.

Numbers were lighter than previous years but fortunately we were joined by Legendary Lucy who had travelled all the way down from GG Newcastle to spend the night as a GG Yorkie festive elf. That's some true dedication! Make sure you give her some cheers

We made excellent progress knocking on doors and collecting donations (including a couple of discount vouchers in Vicky's case) but as the rain came down and morale started fading we were joined by Charlotte to help raise spirits and money!

Big shout out to the Landlady of the Dick Turpin pub for getting one of the bar staff to dip into the till for a tenner and also the Woodthorpe Spice curry house for allowing us to ask their customers for some spare change and also donating themselves. Be sure to have a curry at the Woodthorpe Spice washed down with a pint from the Dick Turpin next time you're in the area!

Anyway, the task was as fab as always and we helped raise a tonne of money for a wonderful cause. Sure, it was a little bit wet and windy, and we all got drenched, but who cares.... IT'S CHRISTMAS 🎄 🎁

Five GG Yorkies (4 elves and 1 Santa) met Andrew from Rotary York Ainsty for our annual Santa sleigh procession around Woodthorpe. The hardy elves ran and walked from house to house and we soon got pretty warmed up as we collected LOTS of coins and plenty of notes as well. We enjoyed hearing various messages on people's Ring doorbells (although Ed didn't believe me until he heard one himself). There were plenty of families waiting on the street corners for Santa, who seemed to enjoy himself almost as much as the children. Lots of people said how they looked forward to seeing the sleigh year after year as it's become a real Christmas tradition. After almost 2 1/2 hours and with very heavy buckets we got back to our starting point and it was time for a quick photo with the sleigh before we headed home. A lovely feel-good mission to get us feeling Christmassy!

Nine hardy GG Yorkies met on a very, very cold night to once again accompany the York Rotary Santa sleigh around the streets of Woodthorpe to collect money for various local Rotary charities and York Mind.

We were efficiently directed by Andrew from York Rotary who made sure we split each side of the streets equally and no-one got left behind (or lost). Jenna had come equipped with spare hats and sets of jingle bells, so Jenna and Tay could be heard jingling along as they jogged to keep warm. Despite there being less people out waiting for Santa this year (probably due to the sub-zero temperature) we still managed to collect some heavy buckets of coins and £ notes (amount tbc).

After 2 and a half hours, with frozen fingers and toes, we got back to our starting point and it was time for a quick photo on the sleigh before we went our separate ways to go and get warmed up.

Nine of Santa’s finest elves (including Sally from GG Islington) congregated in Woodthorpe to help York Rotary Club collect donations for York Mind. One elf - Ed - had to dash home for his running shoes as the REAL Santa was already on his sleigh and elf Ed had been demoted. However, he found that being an elf was a lot more fun, knocking on doors, talking to those waiting in the street and generally wishing everyone a “merry Christmas” in his cheeriest voice! Debs and Pete looked very festive in their Christmas lights and there was a lot of dancing and skipping along (to keep warm of course!) After 2 and a half hours we’d run/walked up many streets and collected lots of cash. Nick said he’d been given lots of notes and thought he’d collected the most but Barbara had lots of coins and possibly the heaviest bucket. We will wait to see what the total collected was but we’ve been told the most so far was around £600 in one night. Hope we’ve beaten that! A really fun task to get us in the Christmas spirit!