Happy December, friends! Many thanks to all of you who took the time to send feedback for the Fall into Autumn Virtual Festival – 35 people filled in the feedback form and were entered into our prize draw for 3 bluegrass CDs. We closed the survey on 30th November and used an online random number generator to pick our winner – the name out of the electronic hat was Warren Curwen from Preston, Lancashire. Congratulations to him – I took the package to the Post Office yesterday and it’s winging its way to him as I type. We received overwhelmingly positive feedback about the virtual festival weekend, both on the feedback form and in the comments we received during and after the online workshops and live streamed concerts. It’s much appreciated by myself and the artists, and it will really help to demonstrate the value of the event in our reporting to Arts Council England.
Stay tuned for an announcement very soon about our concerts coming up in February and March, which are also part of this overall project supported by Arts Council England. The Project Grants: Supporting Grassroots Live Music funding we received in October is helping to underwrite both the Virtual Festival and these two events. Our plan is to film and live stream these early 2021 gigs in our local community venue The Carlile Institute in Meltham. That way we can feature some superb UK artists performing in the beautiful concert room there, with superior live sound and using the Carlile’s new stage lighting! And of course we want to support the venue and help ensure that it will survive. When we first wrote our funding application some months ago, we had hoped to include a very small, socially distanced audience in the room, but given the ongoing situation with the pandemic, we have decided to go with a live stream format only. So we will still need your support and donations to make these events a success! Please do follow us on social media, if you don’t already, to keep up with our news, and please subscribe to our YouTube channel too.
