The Communities Team Leader enlightened the
group on initiatives, projects and events which provided health and
wellbeing to the district, adjacent to planning and organising town
events that would benefit residents and businesses, which covered
the following points:
- Throughout the summer months events
would take place around the rural areas in the district, to
encourage active play.
- Communities would present a
‘Give It a Go’ sports taster event on Sunday 13 August
2023 at the Halley Stewart playing field, to enable children and
adults to try something new.
- During the seasonal period, two
events had been planned;
- the Spalding Pumpkin Festival on
Saturday 7 October 2023 from 11-3pm, the event would include
musical performances, craft and food stalls, pumpkin and harvest
themed arts and crafts, alongside activities, sculptures, and
pumpkin displays. Fancy dress competitions and various other
activities would keep visitors entertained throughout the event.
The Saturday market would take place to allow shops and market
traders alike to take full advantage of the extra footfall. To
enhance the event, local shops and business could take part in a
pumpkin window display competition which would be posted on social
media and displayed in the local press to enable members of the
public to vote for their favourite display.
- Christmas Celebration event would
take place on Saturday 25 November between 11-5pm, to bring festive
cheer to Spalding town centre, the previous two Christmas town
events had been funded by the Spalding Town Centre improvement
plan, and preceded by the Welcome Back Fund., This allowed the
communities team to bring an enhanced event to the residents of
Spalding. For this year’s celebration it had been proposed to
bring extra seasonal market stalls to boost the Saturday market,
local community groups would give performances, to include carols
and Christmas songs, incorporating lots of fun street
entertainment, together with carols by candlelight. The team would
be advertising a Christmas trail to take place throughout December
to encourage local seasonal shoppers. Businesses would be
encouraged to take part in the Christmas window display
competition.
- The Communities Team had applied for
UKSPF funding to hold a springtime event in Spalding Town centre
and currently waiting to hear if their bid had been a success.
- Any ideas for sponsorship or funding
would be welcomed.
Members made the following
comments:
- An idea was raised to encourage
shoppers to visit various stores to find a prize.
·
The Communities Team Leader noted this and mentioned that they had
a similar event called the Nutcracker trail, which encourages the
public to visit different shops and business to locate the
Nutcracker.
- A question was asked if it would be
possible to hold the pumpkin festival as a weekend event rather
than a day event.
o
The Team Leader responded that last year they held a Night Light
Event in Ayscoughfee gardens and
recently Transported had put in a bid in order to fund something
similar. If successful, the Communities Team would help support
Transported with this event.
o
To run these events over a couple of days required additional
funding so at present there were no plans to continue the event
through to Sunday.
o
It was noted that the Communities Team did not have a large budget.
Previously some events had been enhanced due to receiving extra
funding which at present was not available. STF would try to help
support and investigate alternative funding streams.