It might be grey and wet today, but sunshine and blue skies are forecast for tomorrow, so make sure you don’t forget the 2010 Isle of Wight Community Renaissance Festival.
Taking place at Smallbrook Stadium, six hours of fun for all ages is guaranteed.
Take a look at our articles earlier in the week for full details of what’s on offer.
How it came about
Back in August 2008, two local community workers, Cora Wade and Marcelle Edwards were looking at some shots from an American Renaissance Festival taken by a friend of theirs.
If you’ve seen the images from our previous articles on the Renaissance Festival, you’ll understand why Cora and Marcelle were impressed.
They tell us that neither of them had seen anything quite like it – fabulous costumes, colour, performance, dance, theatre, music all with a Renaissance theme.
They’d been thinking of ideas of a project they could create to bring the local community together – and decided on a Renaissance Festival!
Grassroots project
With no funding but bags of enthusiasm – they set about getting the ball rolling. Both work at The Park Centre in Ryde, who allowed them to use the Centre and its facilities as and when needed, so long as it was in their own time.
With that support, they knew they had a project that could develop in to something quite special.
They managed to secure Smallbrook Stadium as the venue, and tell us that Vanessa and the Smallbrook team were 100% behind them, offering the venue free of charge, as they were holding the event to promote the community and raise money for charity.
Next stage .. networking
They then started networking, contacting all kinds of people, artists, performers all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds. Barnardos held Renaissance themed workshops during half term and Jane Pierce ran costume making workshops on the lead up to the festival.
It wasn’t long before they had gathered a group of like-minded people to form a Steering Group. At this point they decided to create the Oakfield and Elmfield Partnership.
Grants and volunteers
The partnership later approached Ryde Town Council for a grant (£1,000) to be able to pay for things like licenses, first aid and a free bus for the day.
Cora tells us that a whopping 240 people gave their time free of charge in the lead up to and during the first festival in 2009.
Many Island businesses donated equipment to the project.
- Material from Lake Textiles
- Crisp white cotton from Island laundries (for the flags, bunting and pendants)
- Sightguard Fire helped with extinguishers
- Barnardos and St John’s Church lent us the PA equipment
- Ed Chisholme donated one of his morrocon marquees for the day
- Marquees from the IOW Lions Groups and 5th Ryde Scouts!
- – and each and every performer did their thing free of charge.
On top of that, they had volunteers postering and flyering, providing site equipment, flags and props.
Helen Davenport came on board and turned what was a patch of green grass in to a beautiful Enchanted Realm.
There were so many businesses and individuals that helped, it is really hard to list them all!
More in store for 2010
And it all happen all over again tomorrow, many of those involved last year are returning, as well as many new faces.
Over £3,000 was raised last year and every penny was donated between four Island charities.
The site opens at 11am and runs until 5pm.
Free bus service from Ryde
Organisers have gone the extra mile by providing a free minibus service from Ryde.
It will be running throughout the day, every half hour from 10.30am.
- St John’s Car Park (The Park Centre) – High Park Road, Ryde
- Hovercraft Coach Park – Esplanade, Ryde
- Co-op, West Street, Ryde
- Smallbrook Stadium
Route:
Look out for the Park Centre Community Minibus (pictured above).
Full lineup of the day’s events can be found on Events on the Wight
