November Update (2): Festival

Here are the posters (above) and flyers (below) that I designed.  1500 of the latter have just been printed and are now distributed throughout the town and local area.

It continues to be mad at work; I won’t go into the nuts and bolts of it because it’s probably boring, but suffice to say, it’s busy-busy and there’s always lots of politics and drama and – sometimes – histrionics (and that’s just me!).  I enjoy it on the whole – but it can be exhausting juggling all the people and personalities, and quite a few egos.  Outside of work I have been busy too – as I’ve been donning my various volunteer ‘hats’. 
 
Winchcombe Christmas Festival takes place on Tuesday 3rd December (less than three weeks to go), and I recently spent two hours with my Festival partner-in-crime organising the stall placement allocations, I then spent the weekend sending out 60+ personalised emails giving stall numbers, physical location and instructions for set-up and so on.  We have one road completely closed (North Street) and then restricted parking and access on Abbey Terrace.  Altogether there will be 52 stalls and 5 catering providers, this year.  And there is also Father Christmas and his sleigh, various ‘entertainment’ posts, and the Police, First Responders and Fire Brigade also bring vehicles so the kids can get inside and see what it’s like and have a go on whatever they are allowed to do?*!  It’s quite a logistical conundrum…. and all for just three hours of trading!  All the shops and cafes / coffee-shops in the town stay open too and most of these have good Christmas tree displays (having purchased them through the Festival organisation).  It is a real community affair with the local primary school kids performing carols, and singing and playing from various choirs and bands, the Morris Men also do a bit of dancing, and I managed to get the Youth Group from the Everyman Theatre involved last year – and they are really keen to come this December too.
 
Coincidentally it has just been confirmed that two friends will be visiting from California – and they arrive on the 2nd December and leave on the 4th.  The Christmas Festival is on the 3rd!!  However, my friends (who I haven’t seen for 9 years and eighteen years+ respectively) are very easy-going and I also figure it will be a good example of UK community winter fare – and therefore a cold but cultural eye-opener for the Americans!  Winchcombe received about 2000 visitors to the Festival last year, so it should be busy again this year too.

Fingers crossed that that the weather errs on the side of “deep and crisp and even” as opposed to damp, chilly and miserable.