Hi All

I am one of the (in Tony Day's words) "two dozen people who spent an amicable, enthusiastic and hard working three and a half hours on the 23rd, putting together the bones of what is going to be a very enjoyable festival"

This is my personal view:

Everything I saw and heard was positive. There was no dissent, bickering or whingeing. There was a spirit of active and enthusiastic cooperation between people who had previously been working separately, and are now working together very much as a team.

Those present have different types of background & experience from inside and outside the folk world, and from inside and outside Sidmouth. I feel these individuals will complement and assist each other very well in putting on a worthwhile festival in 2005.

It won't be the same, of course. Neither will it be easy.
The "feel" will be the same as ever, I'm sure, but the execution (and scale) may well be quite different, so if you don't like change then brace yourself.

We'll see - bear with us, & keep the positive comments coming.

In answer to the question from "Guest (curious)" as to how festival-goers can be kept informed...we are building a mailing list from scratch, based on the expressions of interest already received via the EDDC website, the leaflets distributed at Towersey and people who have given their details to Bill Lankaster, or via the Email adress sidmouthfringe05@AOL.com.

This mailing list is in my custody at present.

I am still trying to find out whether the East Devon District Council website will continue to provide the facility for people to register their interest - but I suspect not. However it is planned that the new site at www.sidmouthfolkweek.org.uk will have the same functionality by late November.

In the meantime, if you'd like to be kept informed, please Email me your name (and snail-mail address if you really must - but we haven't bought any stamps yet!). Please set the "subject" to SIDLIST, or your Email will be discarded as spam.

I/we can give the usual undertaking that your details will not be passed on to any other organisation without your express permission.

My address is my name with a dot in the middle, then the squiggly thing, then "Rawlinson", then a dash, then "Hunter", then a dot, then "GG".

Please don't expect weekly - or even monthly updates - we all have day jobs too, and there's an awful lot to do! But we will do our best to keep you up to date.

That's all for now....watch this space, though.