As one or two of you already know, this years Chopwell Forest Festival has been canceled.
This is a great shame but there may well be some good to come of it yet.
I expect the vast majority of the members of BCUK will not have heard of this woodland festival, held every second weekend in July, organised jointly, between the Forestry Commission and the local voluntary group; Friends of Chopwell Wood.
The event has been run for 14 years and according to the forestry Commission is and has been the largest event of it's type in the UK but several issues have caused organisers to have to rethink.
Parking: the adjacent field, used for public parking during the event, flooded last year and F.C. ended up parking cars all over the wood-this cant happen again.
Cost: the event has never managed to pay for itself. F.C. budgets have been cut again and F.o.C.W. would have to meet the shortfall or rework the whole event.
Manpower:both F.C. and Friends group provided bodies for the infrastructure-admin-security etc. F.C.'s numbers are dwindling and we just don't have enough people to cover everything.
Makeup: It was felt by many, that the event had;"lost it's way" it had become too dependent on "entertainment" be that musical, theatrical, circus acts, with professional musicians and entertainers.
Basically the event was summed up very succinctly by one person as:" a cross between a hippy music festival and a car boot sale" This was not what the festival was supposed to be about, so it was decided to stop and re-think the event.
The ground swell among the members of the management and steering committee's is for a smaller, back to basics event for July 2009 incorporating the best of the originals; e.g.
Maurice Pyle, Burt Hunter, Owen Jones or any number of other, genuine crafts people with a smattering of "entertainment" mixed in.
Now the really interesting bit:
However, it has been proposed that a feasibility study be implemented, looking into the possibility of some sort of bushcraft weekend event being held at Chopwell. The idea did not come from either myself or Eric Methven but from a member of the festival steering committee, who has no connection with bushcraft as such but has finally realised that this is an area of increasing popularity among the public.
Please don't get too excited about the prospect of a "northern get together"
it may well come to nothing, at least at Chopwell but I'll keep you informed as and when I can.
If your interested, you can get a bit more info from the F.o.C.W. website-just google it and it should be on the top of the list.
Thank you all for reading this, hope I haven't bored your nips off! but someone did ask!
I'd welcome any thoughts or ideas regarding a bushcraft weekend event in the region, which I could then take back to the next meeting.
best wishes
Steve (R.B.)
This is a great shame but there may well be some good to come of it yet.
I expect the vast majority of the members of BCUK will not have heard of this woodland festival, held every second weekend in July, organised jointly, between the Forestry Commission and the local voluntary group; Friends of Chopwell Wood.
The event has been run for 14 years and according to the forestry Commission is and has been the largest event of it's type in the UK but several issues have caused organisers to have to rethink.
Parking: the adjacent field, used for public parking during the event, flooded last year and F.C. ended up parking cars all over the wood-this cant happen again.
Cost: the event has never managed to pay for itself. F.C. budgets have been cut again and F.o.C.W. would have to meet the shortfall or rework the whole event.
Manpower:both F.C. and Friends group provided bodies for the infrastructure-admin-security etc. F.C.'s numbers are dwindling and we just don't have enough people to cover everything.
Makeup: It was felt by many, that the event had;"lost it's way" it had become too dependent on "entertainment" be that musical, theatrical, circus acts, with professional musicians and entertainers.
Basically the event was summed up very succinctly by one person as:" a cross between a hippy music festival and a car boot sale" This was not what the festival was supposed to be about, so it was decided to stop and re-think the event.
The ground swell among the members of the management and steering committee's is for a smaller, back to basics event for July 2009 incorporating the best of the originals; e.g.
Maurice Pyle, Burt Hunter, Owen Jones or any number of other, genuine crafts people with a smattering of "entertainment" mixed in.
Now the really interesting bit:
However, it has been proposed that a feasibility study be implemented, looking into the possibility of some sort of bushcraft weekend event being held at Chopwell. The idea did not come from either myself or Eric Methven but from a member of the festival steering committee, who has no connection with bushcraft as such but has finally realised that this is an area of increasing popularity among the public.
Please don't get too excited about the prospect of a "northern get together"
it may well come to nothing, at least at Chopwell but I'll keep you informed as and when I can.If your interested, you can get a bit more info from the F.o.C.W. website-just google it and it should be on the top of the list.
Thank you all for reading this, hope I haven't bored your nips off! but someone did ask!
I'd welcome any thoughts or ideas regarding a bushcraft weekend event in the region, which I could then take back to the next meeting.
best wishes
Steve (R.B.)
