The Christmas Tree Story
“People are going to love our Christmas Tree,” said Dan a few weekends ago while bending over and glueing stars on to aluminium frames in our basement.
Dan and half a dozen other emergency accommodation residents with us had volunteered to be part of the City Mission’s Christmas Tree project.
Later they playfully dabbed individual stars on the frames saying “this star is mine”, “this one is yours”, then they quietly named other people they knew as they placed the stars.
Our tree is covered in thousands of stars that represent the 50,000 plus people we helped in some way this year - people just like Dan and the other guys.
It meant so much to hear Dan say “our Christmas Tree”. It meant he and the other guys were really part of its story.
A few days later we took them to see the tree in Cashel Mall by the Bridge of Remembrance and their excitement at knowing their work was high in the sky was truly moving. As you can tell, this Christmas Tree has a lot of meaning to us and our City Mission community.
Dan placing stars on the Christmas Tree.
A gift to the city
The City Mission has been associated with city Christmas Trees in the past, but our 2020 tree in Cashel Mall is something beautifully unique to Christchurch.
The tree has been designed and built in Christchurch by Mission-supporting engineers and businesses who believe in our work and have gifted countless hours and resources to make this community project happen.
Any unavoidable cost has been covered from within the sponsorship of our wonderful corporate and business supporters. No tree costs have been met by donations towards our work with people.
As always, your donations go towards helping the families and individuals who will need our help more than ever this Christmas.
A symbol of caring
We wanted a tree that held a deep meaning for us and the city, and we wanted a tree that could be used year after year.
The parallel helix shape is what designer and project manager Jamie Wallace, from Holmes Solutions, calls a “largely self-supporting” structure.
He sees a lot of technical challenge and beauty in the shape, but it also perfectly describes how we want the people we care for to end up – helped through a crisis then lifted to become “largely self-supporting”.
Even the rising, curving helixes represent how we take clients from a rock bottom moment in their lives and lift them back up.
In the beginning
The idea of a steel Christmas Tree came to City Missioner Matt Mark late last year when it occurred to him that Christchurch didn’t have a Christmas Tree and it should have one as a gift from the City Mission to acknowledge all the support we get for our work from the city.
Holmes are good supporters of the City Mission and Matt had spoken to staff there about our work, so he asked Holmes Solutions senior engineer Jamie Wallace about the feasibility of building a tree.
Jamie loved the idea and the challenge it represented. A variety of exciting ideas on how a tree would symbolise the Mission’s work was gathered and in the end Jamie’s own design was chosen.
We wanted an inner-city tree so it could be shared with as many people as possible and the Christchurch City Council offered a wonderful spot right in front of the Bridge of Remembrance and on the doorstep of Riverside Market (directors Mike Percasky and Kris Inglis immediately backed it).
Other Christchurch businesses have jumped at the chance to be part of the City Mission’s Christmas campaign and Christmas Tree story. The idea grabbed their attention because it felt right.
Then came Covid and lockdowns. Everyone’s world was turned upside. But the tree’s symbolism became even more powerful and relevant as Christchurch revealed what a united, caring city it was.
While we carried on our work as an emergency response organisation, the city backed us and our Foodbank vans which were sent out on the roads.
Plans for the tree continued too, but it turns out it is not easy to put a 10m steel tree in a city centre.
On the other hand, we often take on “not easy” jobs and thankfully many people were ready to give time and expertise to help our tree appear.
Made in Christchurch
At the very tip of the tree, far out of sight from the ground, is a small scratched inscription:
Skippy 2020
Skippy is Nathan Spring, SteelQuip’s workshop manager, and he led the tree fabrication project. He was there on the Thursday night it was raised by the Bridge of Remembrance and smiled when told his name had been spotted.
ShowQuip owner Jason Galbraith said it took a while to work out how they were going to make the exacting steel structure, but once they worked it out it became an absorbing project.
“We thrive on doing things which are challenging and unique. It’s a lovely thing because it is a goodwill thing isn’t it? It’s providing more of the joy of Christmas rather than just being an artwork. It’s something the city can gather around and it brings some oomph back into the city.”
Ron Sherlock from Sherlock Rings and Flan rolled and shaped the identical steel helix pipes and even with five decades of experience he says it was a challenge.
At the start he didn’t know how he was going to create the matching and always changing and twisting helix pipes, but once he worked it out it and it went well. Engineering experts will know how difficult the task was.
Jamie says he would have liked to do a completely self-supported helix tree but it was not possible to put this in a public space with complete safety, so a little light bracing was needed.
“To my knowledge this had not been done before ... two helixes shaped as a large tree at that scale (10m) high.”
Jamie says one of the pleasures of the project was the willingness of people and businesses to contribute when they knew it is for the City Mission.
On November 26, the tree, with its star-speckled aluminium panels, was built and strapped with lights over 12-hours. In the streets around it we placed 16 signboards telling about our work and thanking our supporters.
Two days later thousands of Christchurch officially welcomed the Christmas Tree to the city in a big-hearted family friendly event that starred Father Christmas taking a punting trip up the river before arriving at the tree.
Our reusable tree is ready to take a starring role in future Christchurch Christmases and it will remain a symbol of a city that cares for all its people.