14th March 2019

Christian Resources Exhibition opened in EventCity, Manchester

A 50-strong children's choir delighted former Eurovision winner Dana with a re-run of her winning song, All Kinds of Everything - but with different lyrics.

The new version highlighted various items at the Christian Resources Exhibition which Dana then opened in EventCity, Manchester, on Wednesday with the children from St Leonard's Church of England Primary School, Padiham, Lancashire, forming the choir.

"You sang brilliantly and you managed to remember so many unusual words," Dana told the children who had sung about chasuble (an item of clerical clothing) and thurible (an incense burner) among the many items available at the exhibition.

The children were then entertained to a puppet show by Ian Jones, of One Way UK, challenged to a walk-through slum seeing how two young people live in Uganda and Ethiopia in a display from Compassion UK; tour the Embassy Bus, a repurposed luxury tour bus once used by Coldplay, but now serving the homeless in Salford; tried landing an aircraft on an isolated airstrip with MAF UK, and also packed food for Hand to Hand, a Feed the Hungry move to send food to needy parts of the world..

"It was a wonderful day and worth all the hard work of learning the opening song," said the head, Beverly Holmes. "The children were also thrilled to learn more about the lives lived by young people in other countries and taking part in the other activities."

The exhibition included stands from 150 exhibitors, more than 30 seminars covering areas like cyber security and safeguarding in church.

It also had a seminar highlighting the complexities of Brexit led by Andy Flanagan of Christians in Politics and a Prayer Wall in which visitors were encouraged to write a prayer for  those involved in the Brexit negotiations and post it on a prayer wall.

Dana, herself a former Euro MP for Ireland, spent time at the prayer wall and entered her own prayer for the continuing negotiations.

More than 400 churches were represented among those who attended the two-day exhibition on 13 and 14 March 2019.

For more information contact:

Dave Hall
Press Officer
01282 459498
email - cre.davehall@gmail.com 

or

Steve Goddard
Director
01744 733898 or 07930 198209
email - steve@creonline.co.uk 

• In descending order, the top picture shows the choir with Dana and the head teacher, Mrs Beverly Holmes, in the next photo children enjoy a puppet show. Then it's one child pilots a MAF aircraft watched by others, and finally, the children are helping to package food for a needy country.