Audlem Music & Arts Festival 2015

This – our 15th such major event – and we are well down the track with our planning.

We – the Festival Committee – began with our deliberations back in October last year, with the need to decide on the new year's Festival with plans set in motion with regards to stages, sound systems and controllers – and the booking of close to 80 acts.

These should cover all the musical tastes from Rock to Choral singing. Then there is the booking of halls, seeking permission to perform in St James' Church, building the Arts Exhibition and Workshops' needs and liaising with others to ensure maximum cover.

The most major element of the Festival is that is all given free to all comers. The biggest such Free Music and Arts Festival in Cheshire and North Shropshire!

To enable this to be possible, we need to raise close to £14,000! From very generous village businesses in the main, from the three Audlem pubs, with grants from ADAS, welcome Sponsorship from Morris Care (Corbrook) and United Carpets.

This year I noticed that the Cheshire East Council are listed as sponsors of the Nantwich Jazz Festival, a 3-day event unlike our 5-day. And there are charges for the bands in the Civic Hall! So, never having had here in Audlem, a penny towards our Festival from CE, I contacted Rachel Bailey, CE councillor for Audlem – a good friend of the village who is ever ready to help in any way she can.

I put the case to her last Tuesday. She said she would have a look into this and by Thursday, she has come back to me with a donation /sponsorship of £1000! Absolutely superb! If only our own Parish Councillors were as proactive. It is now many weeks since I appealed to them for their sponsorship and I still await their response.

Ralph Warburton
Music Festival Team: John Gunstone; Ian Haughey; Pete Marshall; Jack Marshall; Reuben Palin; Alisdair Mackenzie; Liz Haughey; Christine Johnson; Monique Hollinshead.

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