Dear Folks of Chatsworth Road.

Here is a letter from the Chair of the Festival group which was published in the current S40Local magazine. Our next planning meeting is on 8th February and we’ll be discussing plans for involving more local businesses as well as improving publicity for the Festival.

Dear Folks of Chatsworth Road,

I would like to thank you all for supporting our first Chatsworth Road Festival. It happened:  which was a miracle in itself considering the short time we gave ourselves to make it happen and our budget (non-existent until the last minute, then small). But it did happen and the sun shone on us for the start of the festival. People walked up and down Chatsworth Road to visit familiar places as well as discover some new ones. The popular Food Fair was started and we even had a poem written about Chatsworth Road. We celebrated life on Chatsworth Road which was the Festival’s aim.

Now we are starting to plan for the 2012 Festival – well done to those who noticed the word ‘first’ in my opening sentence, yes there will be more. This seems a good moment to explain who we are:

• Deirdre Gage from Created Gallery, local resident & Chairperson
• Paul Chapman from S40 Local, local resident & Secretary
• Colin Harrison local resident & Treasurer
• Clare Gage, local resident & artist
• Shirley Niblock, local councillor
• Sallyanne Beecham, St Thomas’ Centre co-ordinator

We form the Chatsworth Road Festival Group & our aim is to organise the Festival each year. I hope that we can introduce ourselves more in future editions ofS40 Local. This year we have given ourselves more time to get to grips with issues like publicity, contacting a larger number of businesses & households along Chatsworth Road and encouraging people to plan more ambitious events to take place during the Festival. We will be announcing a theme for this year’s festival in the next S40 Local but our aim is to celebrate living & working around Chatsworth Road.

If you would like to organise an event or offer your help in any way, please contact me or Paul Chapman. Paul’s contact details are at the front of S40 Local and I can be reached through Created Gallery or by email info@createdgallery. Meanwhile you can follow us on Twitter (@chatsrdfestival), find us on Facebook (Chatsworth Road Festival) or follow our blog (www.chatsworthroadfestival.wordpress.com).

The planning starts here!

Just a quick post to let you know that we are starting our planning for the 2012 Chatsworth Road Festival today. If you have any ideas for the event, please get in touch through S40 Local or on our Facebook page or here. We are looking for events that you organise – your business, your church, your community group. The Festival is about the people in & around Chatsworth Road: their work, lives, hobbies and talents. So if you are part of a choir and would like to be involved, get in touch & we’ll help you find a venue then list you in the Festival Guide.

Once again we are planning on a wing and a prayer but no money. This is a community festival and it is what we, the community, make of it. If it didn’t happen last year, then why don’t you make it happen this year? More posters needed? Are you a printer who could do some for the Festival? You are very welcome to add your logo onto each of them.

If the Chatsworth Road Festival has a motto then it must be Necessity is the Mother of Invention, so get inventing ways to celebrate our lives around here but on a shoestring budget. We know it can be done, we’ve managed once already (can’t expect the weather every year though).

Chatsworth Road is Paris, Derbyshire

Chatsworth Road is Paris, Derbyshire,

the Champs Elysées for the Chesterfield shopper.

It’s hip, and only a step to the Hipper.

“You can live and die on Chatsworth Road, duck”-

everything you need, from nappies to coffins,

pubs, potteries, churches, Tinny Johnson,

Robbo’s, Hattersley, Mr.English, Pogson’s.

“Hop on, duck. Last tram to the Terminus.”

Where St. Thomas’s bells ring the kitchens.

Now stamp your card, do the Brampton Mile,

do the shop, do the hop, do the Brampton stomp.

The road out west to a dream called Derbyshire.

S40, it’s the new Montmartre,

cafés, books, knitters and croissants.

And I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jarvis Cocker.

Matt Black

Update on the weekend 1st/2nd October.

Well didn’t we have wonderful weather for the launch of the Festival? There were plenty of crossed fingers for a fine weekend and all our wishes were granted by the weather fairy. The Food Fair at St Thomas’ was a roaring success with an estimated 800 people attending. People enjoyed the event so much that the Church is organising a monthly Food Fair starting next month, Sat 5th November.

It was great to hear that Brampton Courtyard had lots of visitors. It is one of the hidden treasures of the area & well worth seeking out. I believe that the photographer from the Derbyshire Times was taking photographs down there, so look out for this week’s edition to find out more.

On Sunday there were several houses having clutter clearances in their front gardens – hopefully this will be a bigger part of next year’s festival. It’s always good to have a sort out every so often & better to help your old possessions find new homes than just be thrown away to create more space.

The weather was a little cooler than Saturday, which proved popular with the Chesterfield Cock & Magpie Morris dancers & the Chesterfield Garland Dancers. They performed between Mesamis & Koo cafes to the enjoyment of both sets of customers as well as quequing traffic on Chatsworth Road.

I Spy With My Little Eye….

The eagle eyed amongst you will have spotted that window flashes advertising the Festival have begun to appear in shop windows. As with everything to do with the Festival, willing volunteers have been rushing about trying to visit venues & businesses to hand out the window flashes. If you’d like one, pop into Created where we have some spare.

Look out for our window flashes appearing along Chatsworth Road.

The Festival Guide is out now.

It’s here at last. The guide to the Chatsworth Road Festival is out in the latest edition of S40 Local. For those folk who regularly receive S40 Local it should be popping onto your doormat this week. For those who don’t receive one, I have a few in Created Gallery but you can read the latest edition by going to http://www.s40local.co.uk.

Please spread the word to friends, neighbours, family & work colleagues – we have an advertising budget of exactly (to the nearest penny) ZERO. In fact that is the figure for the whole festival budget. But this hasn’t stopped people offering free help of all kinds and we are still open to offers of help. We’d love to set some helium balloons off to mark the start of the Festival, does anyone feel that they can help here? A bit of free printing even at this late stage would be appreciated, too. Be inventive & creative has been one of our mottos.

I’m assured that the website (another freeby, thank you Vidbo www.vidbo.co.uk) will be ready soon with more info & details of the guide. Our website will be www.chatsworthroadfestival.co.uk

Until then I’ll try to keep you upto date through the blog & Colin will update the Facebook page with new events http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Chatsworth-Road-Festival/146037692144947. For info on the Derbyshire Poet Laureate, Matt Black’s contribution I will update my original entry on this blog.

Enjoy browsing the Guide.

A joyful meeting with the new Derbyshire Poet Laureate – Matt Black.

Earlier this week I told you that I was to meet the DPL (Derbyshire Poet Laureate) but their identity was secret, totally hush hush. I have been given official permission to reveal that the DPL for the next 2 years is Matt Black from Sheffield http://matt-black-words.co.uk . We had a great meeting & Matt is delighted to be involved in the festival. He was very surprised to hear how much is going on round here & was scribbling notes as I tried to give a flavour of what it means to be ‘celebrating life on Chatsworth Road’.

We’ve got some more talking to do after the weekend & after Matt has had a good look at the listings for the Festival. The working title for his contribution is ‘Pop Ins, Poems & Pints’  as Matt would like to pop in to a wide variety of events during the Festival, read poetry or write poetry and do some of that in a few pubs, as well. Matt was keen to follow through with the Festival & work with us again for 2012 (oh yes, we’re already looking to make the Festival an annual event).

So that’s all for now. Please show your friends & neighbours our feature in this week’s Derbyshire times & let them know about the Festival. Those who get S40local delivered should be looking for  it in the next week. Those who don’t get it delivered, try www.s40local.co.uk to read a copy on-line.

Best wishes to you all: friends, neighbours & colleagues,

Deirdre Gage, Chair of the Chatsworth Road Festival Group.