No one wanted Sidmouth FolkWeek to fail. No one was waiting in the wings to swoop and take over. The truth is that after 3 years of being run by a team of volunteers (including your husband), the festival was many tens of thousands of pounds in the red. The current board stepped up to the plate and bailed out the festival, which at that point really WAS in danger of dying, managed to convert some loans from local councils to grants and reducing (yes, reducing) the standing debt to £60k - which the current 3 directors covered from their *own pockets*.

I personally took a pay cut of two-thirds from my previous position in order to come on board and work for the festival in 2009 (so you can chuck your conspiracy theories about how I was plotting to take over the festival right out the window - the sale of my house actually subsidised me working for Sidmouth in my first year). Our technical partners, Stage Electrics, also did their best to help us through a difficult financial year. But we changed a lot of how things had been run previously - developing programming, and most important putting much-needed budgetary controls in place. The upshot is that, in my first year of the festival (2009), we made a surplus revenue of £20k. In 2008 the festival had LOST £20k. Last year, 2010, we made a surplus of £30k. The debts (run up during your ex-husband's time) are being paid off, we have new partnerships with nationally significant venues to tour shows we are originating, and the future looks pretty good. But in these difficult financial times, nothing can be taken for granted, so anyone continuously slinging lies and willful misinformation at the festival could still cause it substantial harm....>>>>>>


Gordon put in far more than the rest of you lot put together, to save Sidmouth...and for that he was metaphorically stabbed in the back and his reputation was dragged through the mud by folks on here and folks who are connected to Bellowhead, and the person concerned is one of your friends, I believe you've told me before. (please note, no names have been mentioned here)

ALL that I have said about some folks wanting the festival to be shut down completely, so the town would realise what they'd lost is absolutely true. There were plans afoot to do that...but others wanted to be sure that Sidmouth would be saved for generations to come...

And THEY are the people to thank for the festival you now have...because without them, Sidmouth may very well have died a horrible death, with the Town Council NOT allowing it to come back to the town. There was *always* that fear, that possiblity.

Thank you.