The event was opened by the Leader of Sutton Council, Cllr Ruth Dombey and Paul Scully MP Sutton and Cheam.

The planning and preparation for this wonderful event was delivered by a dedicated team of people and organisations, including our own team members from our Integrating Sutton project, which welcomes, and supports the integration of, new Hong Kong residents to the London Borough of Sutton.

Richard Choi, a leading voice in Sutton's Hong Kong community said:

"When we started preparing for the Lunar New Year event a few months ago, we knew how important our volunteer team was. We are very grateful that we quickly formed a core team. Each member of the event planning team went their separate ways to prepare for the relevant activities, recruit volunteers, and do a lot of advance preparation work. They did a fantastic job!"

Read Richard's post on Facebook and watch a highlights video from the event...

The atmosphere was buzzing with activities ranging from Chinese calligraphy, ink block printing to making your own clay dragon - many run by volunteers from the Hong Konger community in Sutton.  

Our Community Health Navigators were also there providing free health and wellbeing checks for residents. Other Sutton organisations who helped out included Sutton Police Cadets, Sutton Older Hong Konger Group, Sutton Hongkong Culture and Arts Society and Sutton College. 

A highlight was the Lion Dance which welcomed in the Year of the Dragon with much fanfare - the drumming reverberated around the library as the Lion danced and shared gold coins to symbolise good luck for the new year. And the Children's Choir entertained us with their enthusiastic singing.  

Wishing everyone a prosperous Year of the Dragon! 

If you are from Hong Kong (or support residents) and would like to join the Integrating Sutton Facebook group to find out about future events, you can join here.