Our 'Home for Christmas' Art competition

Michael Steven is an independent Estate Agent based in Newham.  With the love and support from our clients & local residents, we have thrived and grown over the last 27 years.

Michael Steven decided that with all the support our community has given us, we would like to give something back.  We came up with the idea of hosting a Christmas art competition with our local schools, New City and St Edwards, and we ran this competition in conjunction with Newham Bookshop which is situated just opposite our office.

The rules of the competition were to draw or paint a picture titled 'Home For Christmas'. Using this title the children could use their imagination and their designs could be anything from how their homes are decorated, their Christmas trees, presents or even Christmas dinner (Yum!) Once the entries were received the lovely Vivienne from the bookshop was to judge 1st, 2nd and 3^rd places for each school.  All winning children would receive a book voucher courtesy of the book shop. The runner up winning designs would be printed on our Christmas cards to hand out, and the overall winner would have their design printed onto a 10,000 leaflet drop to be posted to local residents around Newham!

The response we had from all the children was really overwhelming and we received over 300 entries. Every design was outstanding and this really made the judge’s job extremely hard. We used the entries to make a Christmas window display and ALL designs were on show for the whole of December for our community to see.  Every day people would stop to admire the artwork and we had so many positive comments, and passers-by coming into the office to tell us how great the pictures were.

Once the judging took place and we chose the six winning designs, we invited the children over to our office to celebrate. Lots of cakes, sweets and hot chocolate were provided – and consumed (sorry teachers and parents, but it was a very special occasion!). The Newham recorder came along to take the official press photographs!  The children were so proud of their designs, and they even made it into the Newham Recorder as the picture of the week!

Our Christmas art competition was such a success, not just because the children loved it (and so did we) but because we felt it brought the community together in a fun, happy and positive way.

We will definitely be running this competition every year from now on!

www.Newhamrecorder/ChristmasArtCompetition.co.uk