Alex the Fifth

 I like Dreamwidth, but the lack of a working autosave is a real pain.  I'm having to write this post again as I lost all of it...

I'll tell you how the Wimborne Minster Folk Festival went later when I'm less tired, but overall it went very well, a happy relaxed event with a lot of very nice comments from people enjoying themselves.

However, shiny things first!

Alex Holden came down to help me move maypoles and all sorts of other odd jobs.  He also came bearing an unexpected gift.

Some of you will remember my fascination with jig dolls.  Well, just look what Alex made me!

I've named him 'Alex the Fifth' both in honour of his maker, and also because about a third of the members of Anonymous Morris have been named Alex, so clearly the name is obligatory.  (Alex Bebb was a founder member and maintains our web site, Alex Frick is now back in his native Liechtenstein, Alex 'Fox' is still with us, but Alex 'son of Graham' who played guitar with us for a while is now living in Cornwall.

I'm a very happy bunny.  Alex is the best looking jig doll I've ever seen.  A bit stiff in the joints, but that's because of his lovely costume.  You can actually hear the bells ring when he's dancing.

Wimborne Minster Folk Festival in the echo

 Still to sleepy to write much, but this newspaper article sums it up nicely.  We aimed for a family friendly atmosphere - and we achieved it.

Some of the reasons it worked were directly due to things we did like having more activities specifically for children, and some were a serendipitous side effect of other things we did.  For instance, we spaced the stalls out more to leave easy access to any local shops that were opening, but that in turn made it easier for people to move easily around the festival.

We spread the festival out to add two new locations and I think we actually had more people overall, but at a slightly lower density which gave people more breathing space.

We were lucky in some regards.  The recently refurbished square made a lovely dance spot - we put less stalls there and made it a big open dance space and got big audiences there.  Willow Walk, a lovely grassy area by the river, has only been there a couple of years and made a wonderful area for children's stuff.  Loads of people were relaxing there, having a picnic, etc.

Some of the pubs, especially the Albion, got on board with the family friendly aim.  The Albion had free story telling sessions and face-painting and pulled in massive numbers of people over the weekend.  They also hosted one of our new Appalachian dance spots, which soon developed a good audience.

We had some lovely comments from people attending the festival.