Fundraising in a nutshell

There's no end to the money-raising ingenuity at the Walnut Tree in East Farleigh, Kent, where the pub backs everything from bike rides to a music festival. Nigel Huddleston reports

Glastonbury returned last week after a break in 2006 but music fans are to be deprived of another major musical event this summer. The Walnut Tree, in the Kent village of East Farleigh, is taking a rest from its Farleigh Force Festival after three years.

The brainchild of licensees Don and Glynis Cross, the festival has been the hub of a fund-raising culture at the pub that's helped raise more than £9,000 for local and national charities in the past year, and earned the Walnut Tree the final winning slot in our Heart of the Community Pub Honours, sponsored by Scottish & Newcastle UK.

The 2006 festival itself raised £1,700 for the Anthony Nolan Trust, and featured six bands playing on a proper covered festival-style stage in the pub garden.

All the bands included at least one member who drinks in the Walnut Tree, and included Glynis's own rock covers band, the cryptically named 2.38s, for which she's the bass player - though she resisted the chance to give herself headline billing.

The day-long event featured raffles, auctions, magicians, and hand car washes by the local scouts, all adding to the charity coffers. Money from drinks sales also went towards the charity, and, given that more than 300 people attended, this formed a large contribution.

Regulars chipped in to design programmes and posters. "It's one of these things where everyone comes together," says Don. "It's a great atmosphere."

Wacky charity events

Wacky charity events have become a feature at the Shepherd Neame pub since Don and Glynis took over the tenancy five years ago, and the fundraising activities will continue through this year despite the break for the big music event.

Other notable examples in recent times range from a sponsored head shave, fines for customers who fail to say please or thank you when ordering drinks, and an attempt by a regular to eat every item on the pub's menu in seven hours - this brought in £1,300 towards equipment for a children's ward at a local hospital - to backing a group of customers who spend a day every year cycling between all the pubs called the Walnut Tree in the local area; not as easy as it sounds as there are six with the moniker on a 27-mile route.

Barbecue fun day

The pub's participation in a local barbecue fun day raised £1,340 for the Cleft Lip & Palate Association. A 50p portion of every entry fee for the weekly quiz nights also goes to charity and there are collection boxes on the bar for the RNLI, Cancer Research and the Kent Air Ambulance, which is also the recipient of the £1,000 charity cheque the pub has earned for winning the Heart of the Community Pub Honours.

When Don and Glynis haven't been busy organising charity events they've been working to make the pub a cornerstone of local village life. With £30,000 of their own money and some help from Shepherd Neame they've built a modern extension, landscaped the garden with exotic plants and installed play equipment to encourage more families to use the pub.

"We've just kept it traditional," says Don, "the way pubs should be. When we built the extension we introduced a snug because pubs always used to have a snug. The extension's allowed us to do one-off events, such as small wedding receptions and office parties.

"All the building or garden work we have done is carried out by local people and all of our food is sourced locally, because I think that's the way it should be."

Not shy of innovation

Keeping things traditional doesn't mean the Walnut Tree has been shy of innovation. Don and Glynis have tried to extend the working day of the pub by introducing breakfasts from 10am until noon.

Don says: "Parents dropping children off at the playgroup down the road use us because they've got to pick them up an hour later, so they come in here for breakfast in the meantime. We get meetings being held by business people before they go off and play golf."

The pub serves food at lunchtime, but in the evening a more casual approach to catering is adopted. "People can get takeaways delivered here and we'll give them plates and cutlery. We've got menus for Indian, Chinese, Thai and pizza. It's great if it means they come here rather than sit at home on their own."

The overall philosophy has been to make the Walnut Tree accessible to as many parts of the community as possible, with the emphasis on sociability and safety.

"We get a much better clientele these days than the pub used to," says Don. "We don't get aggro any more, no lager louts playing fruit machines - because we don't have any machines any more. Our age group are all 30-plus, and the majority are around 50 to 65, even though they don't all look it.

"We've got a lot of self-employed people around here and that's where the bulk of our business comes from. It means our 5pm rush starts around 2pm, especially on Fridays. We get a broad cross-section of people: we've got brickies, plumbers, accountants, financial advisers, estate agents, even other licensees. We've cleaned it up and taken it back to being a traditional pub because that's what works."

"A lot of women will come in on their own because it's the only place they feel comfortable," adds Glynis, who adds agony aunt to the normal services provided to regulars. "I'm the mum of the Walnut Tree," she says. "If anyone's got a problem they always come to me."

Whether it's the friendly shoulder to cry on or the big charity fundraising event, at the Walnut Tree, the customer comes first.

"It's quite a small community," says Don. "Everybody knows everybody, but it's not cliquey like a lot of small villages tend to be. It's not the sort of place where heads turn every time the door opens.

"This pub is 500-years-old and we haven't tried to modernise it too much, just keep it reasonably clean and tidy, and just let the customers do what they want to do with it. It's their pub."

l Entries to the Heart of the Community awards are now closed and we'll be announcing the final winners in the coming weeks.