by Caz » Fri Jul 05, 2013 5:11 pm
The biggest problem is the lack of volunteers and we haven't had the Saturday night music event for the past three years. The whole of the carnival is in danger of not happening again if more people don't offer to volunteer. The committee has diminished greatly, which means the amount of work each committee member does has increased greatly. When people also have full time jobs, the workload becomes impossible. If there were twice the number of volunteers, the work would be halved and would be more manageable.
With so few volunteers there's always the danger of things getting missed or being late. Then the committee get accused of not organising it properly. They really do their best and unless people get involved, they have no idea of how much organising is involved. I haven't been involved this year because I couldn't commit the amount of time needed, but if there were four times the number of volunteers, I'd be able to manage a quarter of what I've done in previous years!
Another problem is money. Grant aid has diminished, which means the committee have to work hard all year round to raise the funds to put on the carnival. The only money that the carnival itself generates, is from stall fees, the sale of programmes and car parking. Everything else has to be raised or begged. The Saturday night event cost quite a lot of money to put on and the policing of it became difficult.
The Sunday carnival is a family event, with something for all ages.