ONE thousand burgers and sausages were consumed as a major community event in Peebles found the recipe for success.

The Big Sunday Festival at Tweed Green proved to be so popular that organisers are now contemplating staging something similar in the future.

The six churches of Peebles and those of Lyne/Manor and Eddleston got together to set up the event as part of the nationwide “More Than Gold” initiative that celebrated the Commonwealth Games.

And with the help of donations from individuals and local businesses they laid on an entire day of free activities, competitions, sports, music. food and fun for young and old.

“It proved to be an exciting day, it was very well supported and it all went very well,” said one of the organisers Ian Gray, the pastor of Peebles Baptist Church.

“We catered for 1,000 people at the barbecue and all the burgers and sausages were gone. There was a mountain of home baking, popcorn and ice cream and that all went too.

“But it wasn’t just the food that was popular. There were long queues at many of the other attractions especially the face painting. It was also good to see a lot of people at the prayer tent.

“A lot of people who came could not get how we could lay all this on for free - but we wanted to do this as a gift from all the churches to the community.” Young volunteers have been praised for their efforts in delivering the food at the barbecue during the Big Sunday Festival.

The task of catering for around 1,000 people was taken on by members from Tweeddale Youth Action and Peebles CAN.

“Barbecuing for so many people is a tough job and takes a lot of planning and organisation - even seasoned professionals wouldn’t find it easy,” said Dave Hodson, the locality manager of Tweeddale Youth Action.

“For the youngsters to have done this is a huge achievement and I am proud to have headed a hard-working and committed team.” The 300 seats laid out for the joint church service that began the day were soon filled with around another 150 people having to stand.

Local agencies such as Borders Sport and Leisure, Rock UK and Nomad Beat helped in the staging of events that included children’s “messy” crafts and activities, a family heptathlon competition, mountain biking and sports coaching.

The day finished with an open air concert with music from Speak, Brother and Aimee Aitken.

Mr Gray said: “The idea for this came from the Commonwealth Games initiative and originally we thought we’d be able to do something during the Games. In the end it had to be put back but the event was still loosely linked to the Games.

“Lots of people have been asking me if we’ll have something like this again and if we could find a way of doing it, it would be great.

“But it does cost a fair bit to stage something like this and I would just say ‘watch this space’.”