In 2021, for the Christmas tree festival at the Parish church we created a Christmas tree completely out of milk bottles to promote the recycle & reuse theme. 
In 2022 we needed to raise some funds to repair our wonderful wind organ. We are lucky enough to have the organ played at each of our services but after many years it now needs quite a considerable amount of work doing to it, which will cost thousands of pounds.
We have decided to echo the eco friendly idea of the previous year’s Christmas tree & promoted a virtual balloon race.
Everything happened online so there was no plastic to harm the environment or animals.
Although the race was online, clever mathematical and physics algorithms simulated a flight pattern based on the balloon’s individual flight parameters plus the real weather conditions at the actual time of the race, such as the prevailing wind speed and current temperature.
The race launched online from Santa’s village, Lapland on Christmas day for 7days.
We had fun designing balloons with different colours, shapes & patterns & helped its chances by changing its helium content & rubber thickness.
We could follow the balloons globally in real time on Google Maps. The balloons that travel the farthest in a straight line from the launch point won
· 1st prize of £100 cash · 2nd prize of an Amazon Alexa / Echo Dot 4th Generation.
Out of well over 1,000 balloons across different organisations, supporters of our church came in 1st & 2nd position!
Cowper Memorial United Reformed Church 