Copmanthorpe Carnival 2011

York's Finest Carnival

Wow, Copmanthorpe Carnival 2011 was amazing. The biggest and best, out stripping even the last two years

The field was packed with even more stalls, huge rides and slides. The Festival Stage returned and was graced by some brilliant Bands and acts, and most importantly we had more people than ever before. We are starting to ask if we can fit anymore on the field!

Carnival Sponsors

This year Copmanthorpe Carnival had a fantastic business as sponsor for our event. The York-based, not-for-profit organisation, Benenden Healthcare Society joined the Carnival to support this great cause.

This collaboration will create a great platform for the event to grow bigger and better - helping it to achieve its goals and aspirations.

Benenden Healthcare Society were the sole sponsors of the 2010 Copmanthorpe Carnival with a strong presence at the event to promotes good health and wellbeing amongst the thousands of visitors to this year’s event.

Neil Barnes of Benenden Healthcare said: "I think it was a fantastic event, really worthwhile so congratulations to all the team for putting on an event that made a real contribution to the community. At this point in time, I think you can put me on record as saying that I’d love Benenden Healthcare to be main sponsors for 2011’s event if the committee would want us back!"

“Cop Fest”

The "Cop Fest" music festival has now been part of carnival for 5 years and it is now firmly established as the best music event in York.

Everyone who performed on the festival stage were fantastic, starting with the pre-school children who shared the stage with Clare Frisby.

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.

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

Classic Carnival

On Friday night we marked out the spaces for over 40 stalls ready for a great mix of charities, individuals, local organisations and businesses. The Stalls Village was 50% larger than last year and was bustling with people from start to finish. We made some improvements to the food court which helped us to keep queues down, they did appear from time to time, but with some heroic work from the volunteers on the BBQ they managed to sell 900 burgers without people having to wait too long.

Global York brought a team of volunteers to man their kids zone and football cage and also helped out on the BBQ.

Once again we are indebted to "Fairtrade Copmanthorpe" who did such a good job of the tea tent.

This year we had a lot more people volunteering to help out on carnival day, joining a team of people many of whom are old hands. We are indebted to Sarah Sharp who joined the committee this year and basically invented a new role for herself - volunteer coordinator. She appealed for volunteers and organised them beforehand as well as on the day. With the help of Kay Barrett they kept us fed and watered by transforming the Bowls Club into a volunteers lounge, a refuge of tea, coffee, cakes and sandwiches for all those who were involved in putting on the event. Many thanks to the Bowls Club and The Annexe Coffee Shop, who supplied the food and drinks, for their help.

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. 2011 has been our most successful Carnival ever raising £16,500

Thank you to all who came to Carnival 2011, without you it would have been an empty field and an £12,000 loss!

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

Finally

Copmanthorpe Carnival is growing and so is the committee, but you may be surprised to know that it was orgainsed by a team of 15 village residents. These volunteers produced the programme, the web site, the music festival, the wine tasting, the discos and the battle of the bands (which was pretty much envisaged and run by a 17 year old). Booked the stalls, the stage, the bands, the slides and rides. Applied for grants and licenses. Sold programmes and tickets. Cajoled friends into helping.

Most 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, in the end, we are all quite rightly proud of what we achieved at Copmanthorpe Carnival 2011.