Fort William Festive Fund’s Christmas lights event on Friday was another huge success, with many local people heading into the High Street to celebrate the start of the festive season.
Santa arrived accompanied by the Fort William Foxes and Lochaber High School Pipe band and made his way up the High Street on the Softrak kindly donated by Thistle Access.
Crowds in Cameron Square were kept entertained by Clare Sargent, Kilmallie Choir, Mike Hepburn-Scott on the pipes and, new this year, Best Dressed Festive Doggie with five entrants in the competition.
The raffle sold out on the night and there were many fantastic prizes, including a massive Highland Coo donated by Chalmers.
Record numbers of children went to search for Santa in the West Highland Museum, with a head count of more than 400 people passing through the historic building in two hours.
Many of the shops, pubs and restaurants were busy. The chilly but dry weather brought many people out and seeing so many happy smiling faces on the wee ones made it a magical event for everyone.
This entire evening is organised by a small committee of volunteers – Karen Dean, Sasha McKinley, Tricia Jordan, Abigail Wineberg and Cherryl Allan – who rely on the generosity of local businesses to donate time, prizes and equipment to make it happen.
The group need more volunteers to join to ensure the event can be sustainable in future years.
Every year the group need to raise at least £8,000 just to get the lights installed without other costs required for the evening to take place.
If you could help in any way at all please get in touch via the Fort William Festive Fund social media channels.
“Without more volunteers stepping up, we may not be able to promise this event will happen again next year,” said Karen.
Featured image: One young man was not particularly happy at meeting Santa for the first time. Photograph: Iain Ferguson, alba.photos. NO_F48_FortFestiveFund_23_ChristmasStreetParty 04