I’d like to give a shout out for our Shefford Community Hall which has recently had a great make over with installation of a new heating and air conditioning system plus a new audio visual system with hearing loop.
The hall has a long history of serving the community and has a social centred ethos which enables it to offer a unique venue for kids parties, social/exercise classes and other social group activities for the benefit of young and old people in our town. It would be a brilliant venue for events and activities during the Community Festival.
The Hall is on one level with a composite floor. The entrance has a ramp allowing for wheelchair access. The kitchen has a serving hatch. Ladies, Gents and Disabled Toilet are provided. Outside there is a small garden area with Parking space in front of the hall for approx 12 vehicles.
The hall features a great clear space of 15 Mtrs x 9 Mtrs with a capacity of up to 100 people with 19 tables and 100 chairs. It has a Drop down screen with Projector, Audio visual equipment including Hearing loops.
The kitchen, which has a 3 metre serving hatch has a large electric oven, grill and hob, a Microwave Oven also an Urn plus 2 electric kettles, a Refrigerator and Crockery – limited supply of cups -70, saucers, mugs 21, plates, side plates, teapots, glasses and cutlery.
A small enclosed rear outdoor garden area is available and there is limited parking in front of the Hall, maximum of 12 parking spaces – subject to sensible parking and at owners risk. On road parking also is available immediately in front of the hall grounds. Booking Secretary is Cllr Elsa Tattersfield – contact 01462811607 or email [email protected]
Opening Ceremony in the High Street
Scarecrow festival all around town
Garage Sale Trail all around town
Ramble walk from Lemon Plaice
Millenium Green work party
Shefford Majorettes taster evening
Well being walk from the Library
Art Exhibition at the Community Hall
Sloop Groggy Dogs sea shanty group at the STMA
Eat Feast street food – delayed event.
We know that many more are still in preparation and are yet to be included so do keep watching this space for lots more events.
We plan to put a draft program live on here after Easter so if you have an event you would like included please notify us by completing the participant registration here https://www.sheffordcommunityfestival.co.uk/registration/
We are moving on with the program for this September and I am delighted to announce that we already have four of our signature events booked in:
Community Market on Saturday 13th Sept
Garage Sale Trail Sunday 14th Sept
Scarecrow Festival Fri, Sat, Sunday 12/13/14 Sept
Art Exhibition @ Community Hall Sat/Sunday 20/21 Sept
We are delighted to announce that local companies John R Ford and Country Properties will again sponsor the Shefford Community Festival for 2025. Both companies have been established in the Shefford community for many years and were among the first to lend financial support to the festival.
While for the past seven years most of the cost of running the festival has been covered voluntarily at no cost by the small team here at festival central, we have increasingly come to rely on our sponsors to help cover admin and promotional costs. Other continuing sponsors on the promotional front are LivingLife and Newsline magazines – we are grateful for the support of all our sponsors.
Contact me for details if you would like to sponsor the festival
For the past seven years we have varied our dates between the third and fourth weeks in September to work in with other local events and organisational constraints – so for 2025 we have chosen to run the Festival between Friday 12th and Sunday 21st September. We hope that works OK for everybody and that the weather will be good to us all!
It would be great to expand our activities into new areas – would anybody like to organise a Teddy Bear Toss for example? or some sort of street event in the central high street. I think the Library team would like to organise a community open day so if you would like to support them I think now would be a good time to join the conversation.
And of course if you would like to sponsor the event please contact me
We had a great response to our interactive tree this year when we asked people to contribute their ideas for Community Values – it was a popular format as several other trees used the same idea – so when we collected the values we had quite a few These were :
Togetherness, Caring, Support, Love, Neighbourliness, Acceptance, Compassion, Charity, Consideration, Sharing, Friendship, Trust, Creativity, Togetherness & Kindness.
Quite a good basis for a Community Festival – also in conversation I was told that Shefford had a Teddy Bear Zip line at some point in the past – from the Church tower to a nearby tree – what an excellent idea!
I would also like to thank Three Kings for their kind donation of a lovely tree – we couldn’t have done it without you!
The Shefford Festival is based on the energy and ideas of the Shefford community, so now we are planning for the 2025 festival and looking for new ideas – Shefford lost its pram race many years ago, then the parade went and more recently Revs and Rhythms, so we are looking for new things to spark the town’s interest and wondering if there are any aspiring organisers out there? Do you have any ideas of things you would like to see going on in Shefford?
Suggestions we have heard so far include:-
- A book fair
- A film club – the newly upgraded Community Hall should be an excellent venue for this as it now has a modern sound audio-visual system with improved acoustics and lots of comfortable seating as well as a new combined heating and air conditioning system.
- A jazz group
- A photography group
- Amateur dramatics and/or street performance
Would you be interested to run one of these events or can you think of something else however big or small?
We would love to hear and to support new events and activities in September 2025, but now is definitely the time to brainstorm and plan.
Please give me a call if you would like to chat over ideas and venues.
Ian Deavin 07860 218334 or email [email protected]
This year we have an interactive tree at the St Michaels festival where visitors are invited to post their own banners with personal thoughts of positive community values we are aware of or would like to see in Shefford.
Do come and share – simply write your values on blank paper banners and place on the tree – banners and pencils provided!
Once again we will exhibit our tree at the St Michaels festival with a tree kindly donated by Three Kings Christmas Trees
Our theme this year is Community Values – we have noted a few but invite visitors to add their own on a paper banner so we can adopt them for next year!
As was remarked to me on Sunday “this is one of the few times Shefford comes together” – along with others we would like to see more community events in the centre of town and to an extent we have played a small part in encouraging this to happen. Unfortunately we have a restricted area for these events but from memory I think we now have Remberance Day, Christmas Lights switch on, EatFeast, Festival opening, Friday market, Community Market and the Charter Fair.
It is great that some progress has been made by using Pamoli Square so thanks to Morrisons and the Council for facilitating this.
