Stanton St. John

Stanton St John Festival 2010

The 2010 Festival was launched by a presentation held in the Village Hall in February 2010 with a vision and clear objectives:

Vision – The Vision was to provide a family orientated Festival, offering a wide range of activities, embracing the history of the event but also seeking new ideas and initiatives to keep a fresh approach to attract regular and new visitors.

The objectives were simple

• Provide an event to bring residents of the village together.
• Raise money for the designated causes of Church repairs, Village Hall repairs and works at the Holford Centre
• HAVE FUN!!

A full Festival programme was launched with fun cricket on the Saturday, John Shaw providing a coaching platform for the keen participants, and the Arts exhibition in the evening. Sunday evening saw the Church full to the brim and bursting with sound for Evensong and The Star played their part with a Band on Sunday.

It ended with The Talk House hosting a Hog Roast.

It is clear that Stanton St John and its friends from surrounding villages respond magnificently to the occasion. The event requires a lot of hard work and planning. I would like to thank the many people who ‘step up to the mark’ in the work needed outside of the two days of the Festival itself. Witnessing the clean up in pouring rain in early and late hours shows their commitment. Regular and new faces combining to share a bond and take pride in their achievements is an experience I will always cherish.

Art Installation

The 2010 Festival was also offered a fantastic opportunity of an exciting art installation project on the Millennium Green. This project was led by Matthew Clark, who was featured in the BBC Saatchi Art programme. The Millennium Green provided a location for the installations to be created as part of the landscape and involved people interactively as part of the art installations in playing a game of tennis, or creating their own art from pieces of pipe work.

Arts and Crafts

The contrast to the traditional Art and Craft Exhibition at the Holford Centre could not be more striking. We were fortunate that David and Ann Nutt agreed to organise the exhibition based on the principles of inviting local artists and providing a wide range of arts and crafts. We recognised the potential impact of the economic conditions and an affordable approach to the art and items was agreed.

Village Hall

The Village Hall once again offered the traditional venue for tea, cake and relaxation from the excitement of the Festival. A chance to unwind, meet people and taste the delicious cakes kept the team busy throughout the two days. At times Sheila and her team were pushed to the limits but always responded with a smile or a kind word.

Family Friendly

The opportunity to build on previous success led to excellent ideas coming to the table to provide fun activities and encourage families to enjoy our Village. Circus activities combined with traditional coconut shy, fair rides and children’s activities gave new and existing members of the village an opportunity to host and run stalls.  The mix was excellent. One new area was competitive activities that culminated in prizes at the end of the Festival. This led to an exciting climax in the final of the welly wanging competition!

Country Market

By providing the Country Market over two days, it was felt that the emphasis should be on creating a genuine ‘country market’ feel.  Roy Roden took on this task and provided exactly what we were looking for with a mix of products and stalls.  Graham and Penny Corbett supported the Festival fund raising by offering their services to supply crepes and Pimms for a relaxing atmosphere. The crepe stall regularly ran out of pancake mix throughout the two days and Graham was rarely seen relaxing! Mollie’s Deli was also a great hit and the residents of Simms Close are to be thanked for accommodating the Country Market over the two days and for the inconvenience caused.

Open Gardens, Meadow Tea Garden and Garden Shop

The garden theme runs through the Festval and is another demonstration of the diversity offered to everyone attending the 2 days. The generousity of the garden owners to provide these locations is fantastic, and those responsible for making these locations come alive during the Festival did such a great job, they have given them-selves a job in 2 years!

Fund Raising

The Festival provides the platform to raise money for the designated causes.    The main fund raising activities are centred on the ticket sales, the raffle and Sheila’s team in the Village Hall selling cream teas.  Again, we changed our approach with a slight increase to admission prices and the raffle focused on better quality prizes. Thanks to Angela Clark’s excellent work in co-ordinating the raffle, this strategy proved successful and no one was more pleased than Angela, when Rob Jackson returned from South Africa to assist her over the weekend.

Bumper Year

Early indications from our Treasurer, Charles Merry, are that despite the recession, we have had a record year and have made a profit of £9,000! On the basis that we took the decision to invest in the look and feel of the Festival with marketing material and new signs and t-shirts for use in future festivals, this result is even more remarkable. We were supported in the marketing process by David Foale who used his expertise to help to make this investment pay dividends.

This has been my third Festival and I am delighted with this achievement. I would like to thank each and every person who has supported the event and put their passion and enthusiasm into Festival 2010.  We have been supported fantastically by Tony and Dawn Bradford, Rectory Farm and The Gresswell Trust.  This year represents a landmark Festival and has seen over eighty volunteers take part in different areas of help and support.  You all know who you are – Thank you.

Finally, special thanks to my committee and especially Lorna Bevan and Christine Lawson who have been exceptional.

Russell Warner

Chairman

Festival Committee

September 2010

7 Responses to “2010 SUMMER FESTIVAL”