Shefford Scout Group opened their doors to the public on an exciting evening when their enthusiastic members were engaged on a Bridge Building Challenge – as we can see from the photo they had great fun with this and succeeded brilliantly.

Sunday promised terrible weather – which in the main held off allowing the Garage Sale Trail to be a success – we had a record number of nearly 40 stalls and I hear that one stallholder even made nearly £100 on the day – we were happy with a lot less but a pleasant day with neighbours and visitors – many of whom came from well out of town.

The weather on Saturday was wonderful which gave many activities a great start – you can see from the photos where I managed to get to –  of course the “highlight ” of my day was a climb to the top of our newly renovated Church tower but it was also lovely to see the History Group getting so much interest in the working model of the old Shefford Railway and my personal favourite of an evening of Eat-food following the Prince and Princess Day presentations with visiting Gruffalo. Other presentations included the Community Hall open day – again supported by the WI and the Library open day. I also managed to get a brief visit in to the Bowls club who had their club finals and visitor welcome well attended in lovely September sunshine.

Not long now to a full programme of events – with many new activities such as the town centre Street Food Fair, Pop-up Circus and St Michael’s Fair.

The Community Hall will contribute much of interest with new participants in their Open Day and the annual Art Exhibition.

New for 2019 are Scouts open events, Artisans in the Yard and a History Group display of Shefford’s railway past.

A final mention of course to our community centred Library and their open day of What’s on in Shefford.

With lots to explore over the Festival, we hope you enjoy the programme and maybe set up something yourselves for next year – maybe a completely new event – or just taking a stall in the Garage Sale Trail.

Read the latest Shefford Community Festival Newsletter. If you would like to subscribe to these newsletters, please contact us with your name and email address and we will add you to the list.

It is great that participants in the forthcoming September Festival are getting on with their organisation and forward publicity – it is really exciting to see them around the town. In order to help this effort and to maximise exposure we have now added a new Gallery section on the website to accommodate these posters etc from participants – so if you have a poster  or other publicity material suitable for inclusion – please submit it to us for inclusion – you can view here.

We have added a new page to the website which makes it easy to register your participation in the Shefford Community Festival. Check it out!

This year the Community Festival features several signature events from an EAT Feast Street Food Fair in the centre of town to the Garage Sale Trail – a Pop Up Circus to the Prince and Princess Day – the Art Exhibition to Theatre classes, singing workshops and Artisans in the Yard Gallery display, the annual Bowls Club Finals open to spectators, and the Community Hall Open Day – both with refreshments available.

As last year, St Michael’s Church will be active during the week with many events. The Women’s Institute will be participating in festival life as they do all year in the life of our town – at the Community Hall Open Day and at the Library “What’s On” day. New this year, Acorn Pre-School & Mighty Oaks will have an open stay-and-play session for children of Shefford and their parents.

Barnwell Music, who last year held a recital at the Baptist Church, will this time be running singing workshops – while at St Michael’s Church they are running a Michaelmas Fair Café including stalls with craft and produce,

So, there will be lots of special events, but there are also many regular activities such as Yoga and Tai Chi classes, Thai Kick Boxing, Scout Group, Line Dancing, Full Bottle Fitness, Karate, Dance, Hartbeeps, Coffee Club and more.

Now is a great time to check out the Festival Programme on our website and start to plan your diary for September!

Hi – those of you who have seen the latest issue of Newsline will know that we are moving ahead with coverage for the Community Hall and for the Festival Garage Sale Trail – incidentally the Langford Garage Sale Trail over the weekend went extremely well with 60 stalls I believe.

So we are now running up to the first of our deadlines for the Shefford Community Festival, which is to get the program together to submit for the August issue of Shefford Newsline – to do this I must have details of entries by mid-June – if you have not already done so.

Beyond that we will miss the great opportunity of putting your event into every home in Shefford.

I am aware that a number of exciting events are in the planning stage, so if you would like to organise an event and have not yet let me know or would like to add further information then I will need the following:

Date

Time – start/finish

Venue

Short description

Contact information you wish to publicise

Any charges

If you can’t get information to me by then we can still include you in all the other publicity with local press and social media but Newsline is really the big one.

Now we have our own website the program can be updated right up to the last week but it does work best to promote early and keep the ball rolling.

When you have your event planned then do not forget to promote it yourself as well – especially on social media and word of mouth to add to the buzz – and then nearer the time perhaps with posters. Festival logos can be downloaded from the website here https://www.sheffordcommunityfestival.co.uk/festival-downloads/ where you can also see updates on the blog section and register for your own update in the pop up.