Copmanthorpe Carnival 2008

York's Finest Carnival

Wow, Copmanthorpe Carnival 2009 was amazing. The biggest and best in its 40 odd year history.

We had more stalls, huge rides and slides, the biggest stage and the best bands, and most importantly more people than ever before. For the first time ever the sports field was full!

“Cop Fest”

In 2007 we started the "Cop Fest" music festival at Copmanthorpe Carnival and on the 4th July 2009 it came of age. With a professional festival stage, a perfect sound system and an awesome line up, "Cop Fest" is now the best music event in York.

Everyone who performed on the festival stage were fantastic, starting with the pre-school children, even though they had the somewhat dubious privilege of sharing the stage with Dave Godfrey and singing one of his songs. Love ya Dave.

And a big thanks to all the bands who performed. It's not really fair to single anyone of them out, but a big thanks go to "Club Smith" who kept the faith and were prepared to return after last years down-pours.

But the biggest thank you goes to Elliot Minor and their amazing fans. They performed a barn-storming set to a reved up crowd and, in my opinion, those guitar solo's rocked.

Though all of the 6 hours of music we were in the safe hands of Minster FM who did a brilliant job.

Classic Carnival

Late on Friday night we marked out the spaces for over 30 stalls ready for a great mix of charities, individuals, local organisations and businesses. The Stalls Village had a real buzz about it especially at the end where we had added the food court. We must apologies for the queues for burgers and that we sold out—last year we had nearly 100 left over, this year we ran out before 3 o'clock.'

St John's Ambulance did a great job and they enjoyed themselves thoroughly being stationed in their new location, the big red bus.

Global York brought a huge team of volunteers to man their kids zone and football cage and also to help us out with the lawn games, hot dog stall and Pimms bar.

Once again we are indebted to "Fairtrade Copmanthorpe" who did such a good job of the tea tent. Sorry about it being so hot in there, we'll get that sorted for next year.

The fairground rides were awesome, with the cliffhanger ride being a big hit with the teenagers while the giant inflatable slide was popular with those a bit younger.

I was surprised at just how popular the tug of was was, it gave the day a traditional feel which could have so easily been lost. The damage that the steel plated shoes of the tug of war teams did to the cricket outfield was expertly repaired in time for the Copmanthorpe 2nd XI to win a week later.

A Week of Events

Carnival Week was a great success. The Arts Festival kicked things off on Tuesday evening (while the bands were promoting the event in York) and was warmly received by all, with the quality of the exhibits improving once again. Most of the paintings were sold, with many being reserved on the opening night.

The Carnival Wine Tasting is now a permeant fixture in our programme and this year we were taken through a fine collection of English Wines by Karen Hardwick of The Wine Academy. As ever, it was a hugely enjoyable and informative evening, with over 50 people squeezed into the sports bar.

The Carnival quiz wasn't as popular as in previous years, but with so many at the wine tasting the previous night, lower numbers were to be expected. The highlight was the music round which was put together by Dave Kershaw, who cleverly weaved our Carnival Theme of "An English Summer" in to his choice of music.

The Junior Discos were bursting at the seams with over 60 at both the younger and older events. Many parents enjoyed and evening in the beer garden while their children danced their socks off in a very hot sports club!

Many Thanks

Copmanthorpe Carnival has two aims. The first is to be a great community event for the people of Copmanthorpe and the wider area. The second is to raise money for Copmanthorpe Recreation Centre. Anyone who attended this years carnival will already know that we achieved the first aim and we are pleased that we have also been successful in our second aim. Our initial calculations tell us that we should raise between £9,000 & £10,000! This is roughly double what we have raised in each of the last two years.

Thank you to all who came to Carnival 2009, without you it would have been an empty field and an £8,000 loss!

Thanks to all the stall holders, the bands, the army, the city council. And thanks to all of those who volunteered on the day to pick strawberries at 8 o'clock in the morning, to sell tickets on the gate, to cook burgers, to sell pop, Pimms and raffle tickets, to set up the lawn games and man them, to pick up litter and everything else which I can't remember. Thank you to every one of you.

And a final thank you to the scout leaders who joined our team at the eleventh hour. I cannot put into words how vital you were—If you hadn't been their, I'm sure we would have been in trouble, big trouble.

Finally

Copmanthorpe Carnival 2009 was amazing, but you may be surprised to know that it was orgainsed by a team of 10 village residents with the help of a few "outsiders" from global. These volunteers produced the programme, the web site, the music festival, the wine tasting and the discos. Booked the stalls, the stage, the bands, the slides and rides. Applied for grants and licenses. Sold programmes and tickets. Cajoled friends into helping.

Many of us were wondering what we'd got ourselves into in the final weeks and days and started to worry about what may happen, would it all go wrong? But, fin the end, we are all quite rightly proud of what we achieved at Copmanthorpe Carnival 2009.