Caldmore Carnival becomes Caldmore Village Festival
When we organised a community carnival in 2003 we hoped it would attract enough interest, and funding, to justify making it a permanent feature of our annual calendar of activities. Our aim then was to use the carnival, and in particular the workshops leading up to it, as a way to bring local people together, to break down barriers and encourage a greater sense of community. We also hoped that longer term this would be an event which would bring people from other areas into Caldmore and help the local business to thrive.
Happily, we did get funding and each year more and more people as well as local groups have shown an interest in taking part. Another aim was for the planning of the carnival to be taken over by a committee comprising local residents, voluntary agencies and businesses, schools and places of worship.
We’re delighted that this year, the 7th consecutive year of the Caldmore Carnival, this ambition has been realised with the support of Walsall MBC. Input of officers involved in the St Matthews, Birchills and Leamore LNP has resulted in the development of a committee which they will continue to support. This committee includes local residents, local businessmen, voluntary agencies and faith organisations. It has been meeting since late 2008 and early this year made the decision to develop the carnival into a 3 day festival. This will take place over the first weekend of October 2009, and work is underway to find funding and to put a programme of entertainment together.
One of the aims of the festival is to give local people a chance to showcase their talent - if this could include you then please contact Margot or Naz at our Caldmore Green office. You may remember that last year we exhibited paintings and poetry in the windows of local shops, and we will do this again this year. So don’t assume that ‘talent’ refers only to performance such as music or dance.
Naturally we are members of the Caldmore Village Festival Committee, and as such have retained the responsibility for organising the carnival. Garry Jones will be our lead community artist again and we will be announcing details of workshops in the next few weeks.
Please contact Margot if you would like more details of the festival Committee and festival plan, and watch our website for updates.
