BILLINGHAM INTERNATIONAL FOLKLORE FESTIVAL
NEWSLETTER December 2010
Issue No 12
www.billinghamfestival.co.uk
Great News first.... Thanks to the Heritage Lottery Fund 50 years of festival history and legacy will be presented in the Virtual Museum. The Legacy of Billingham Festival project receives the go ahead from Heritage Lottery Fund. We are delighted to announce that in early September we received a confirmation of a generous grant of £49,500 from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) towards our project “The Legacy of Billingham Festival”. This grant will enable us to collect the memories of those who have organised, volunteered and performed here over the years. Over the next four years, from now until 2014, these historic memoirs, together with all the videos, photos, brochures and festival programmes will be built into a huge and per manent computer archive (Virtual Festival Museum) making it accessible to all. Head of the Heritage Lottery Fund in the North East, Ivor Crowther said: “The Heritage Lottery Fund is delighted to support this project that will tell the story of the Billingham International Folklore Festival and remember the people that have been involved with it. Over the last 50 years, the festival has become hugely popular with local people and visitors alike and it is important that their memories are preserved for generations to come. Not only will the history of this
wonderful event be remembered and shared with new audiences, through the creation of a new website and online archive, it will also create a range of volunteering and learning opportunities for the local community.” To create the virtual museum we need your help! Everyone who has ever been to the Festival, has their own memories which we’d like you to share with us. To do so, you can write to us at the Festival office, email us or send us your stories through our Website by submitting them through our “Message Board” If you have any of the old festival photographs, video footage or old festival programmes or posters you would like to donate to our Festival archives we would be delighted to hear from you. We are also looking for volunteers to help us carry out the project. Over the next three festivals 2011-2013, we want the volunteers to talk to Festival visitors and participants both past and present and we’ll train a group of around 20 volunteers to do so using a variety of media. Please get in touch, we are waiting to hear from you!
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Now – The Bad News.... The Festival Funding receives significant budget cut starting from 2011.
Just like in this article from the Northern Echo published in 1985… The policy of government a c ro s s t h e b o a rd p u bl i c spending cuts did not leave our festival untouched. We have now been told by Stockton Borough Council that our next year’s grant will be cut by 18%, which creates a huge problem for our festival, as we are already operating on an extremely tight budget. Unless we can find additional funding elsewhere, and we are trying every possible available avenue, we will have to make major cuts in our Festival,
primarily in the number of International groups appearing each year. This year we managed to sustain the festival with 7 International Groups, as one of the groups (Togo) did not arrive. However, to present a versatile and attractive programme to our audiences on daily basis, we need to have at least 8 groups, if not 10. And again we are appealing for your help! We need to raise additional £25000-30000 to be able to sustain the festival at the high artistic level. We would like to appeal to all our audience members and
volunteers, who supported us throughout the years to donate any amount of money you can spare, no matter how small! You can make your donations to the Festival by sending a cheque made out to BIFF Ltd to the Festival Office address or online via Paypal at our Festival Shop www.billinghamfestival.co.uk/ store and click on “support our festival’. (If you require a Gift Aid Form, please contact us to offset your donation against tax) In return we promise you the Best group selection you have ever seen at our festival!
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47th Billingham Festival 2011 6th - 13th August
PANAMA
GEORGIA
KOREA
COLOMBIA
In spite of the problems our festival is facing, the international reputation of the Billingham Festival seem to be growing every year, as this year we received a record number of applications from the best International dance and Music groups from all over the World wanting to come to Billingham. It is leaving us extremely frustrated that we can’t invite all of them to perform for you here in Billingham. Here is the preview gallery of the groups which we have shortlisted for our Festival 2011. We also have selected 5 other European groups which are currently on the waiting list if we succeed in getting the European Grant we have applied for. There could be one more surprise group, which we are currently negotiating with and which we are absolutely sure you all will be delighted to see in Billingham next year! New Festival Programme Here are some of our new ideas we would like to implement into our programme for the festival 2011: During the Festival Family Day on Sunday we would like to include local talent competition, inviting any individuals and community groups age 8-18 to take part and showcase their talent in front of the festival audiences. The local talent competition will be judged by you the audience and the international performers. The winner will be invited to perform at the Festival Gala Concert in the Forum Theatre. We would like to make the Uncle BIFF Children’s Club Free for special needs children and discounted weekly membership for all children. We would like to introduce 15-20 minutes break at each of the outside performances giving a chance for festival visitors to interact with the performers, take photographs and visit the International craft stalls inside the Arena. We also intend to dedicate one day to showcasing 4-5 UK Pipe Bands performing in a Military Tattoo style concertcompetition, and run a workshop after the concert for any one who would like to have a go at playing the pipes and drums. And finally, we are extremly excited that after all the problems we had with the cold and rainy weather at the festival last year, we are looking into the possibility of using new type of covered seating with ROOF over the seating area!
BELORUS
RUSSIA
SERBIA
EGYPT
COSTA RICA
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Our Volunteers brave the cold weather in the festival shop In spite of the recent snow and cold weather our five brave festival volunteers Sandra Cutler, Teresa and Billy Forbes, Sonia Lawson and Pam Reeves have kept our festival shop in Billingham Town Centre generating money for the next festival. We are extremely
grateful to them for their dedication throughout the year and we would also like to thank everyone who donated various items for sale. Our volunteers spent time decorating the shop for Christmas and are currently running the Christmas Raffle
with a massive hamper as a top prize. Please pop along and enjoy the festive spirit in our shop! Our shop is open Monday to Saturday from 10am till 2:30pm, but will be closed after Christmas until 4th January.
Next Publication of Billingham Festival Newsletter We intend to keep you up-to-date with all the Festival preparations and our progress, so we are planning the next newsletter around March/April 2011. Meanwhile all the news will be published on our Website: www.billinghamfestival.co.uk If you would like to make any comments or suggestions regarding the Newsletter, or receive previous editions of the Newsletter by email, please contact us.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2011!!! Billingham International Folklore Festival Ltd Stockton Business Centre 70 Brunswick Street, Stockton on Tees, TS18 1DW Tel: (01642)553220 email: info@billinghamfestival.co.uk www.billinghamfestival.co.uk BIFF NEWSLETTER | info@billinghamfestival.co.uk | www.billinghamfestival.co.uk