Arts Festival 2001

The first Welborne ‘Arts Weekend’ was in 2001. This came about because we were offered the Creative Arts East (CAE) 2001 touring art exhibition at short notice; another village had cancelled because of foot and mouth restrictions. The exhibition was brought on a lorry to Welborne for one day. To compliment the festival we also put on a flower festival in the church and provided refreshments in the village hall.

We attracted over 130 visitors and made a small contribution towards village hall and church funds.

Arts Festival 2002

For 2002, we decided to expand the Arts Weekend. We successfully applied for an ‘Awards for All’ grant of £2,608 which covered the costs of hiring a marquee, transport, printing and security costs. As well as the CAE touring exhibition, we invited a group of local professional artists to put on a separate exhibition. On the Saturday evening, a concert was held in the church, performed by a local choir.

We attracted over 400 visitors over two days and made a surplus, which was shared with the church.

Arts Festival 2003

2003 was a difficult year. Funding bids went in late and we did not attract all the grants that we had hoped. However, in a very positive display of community spirit and lots of self-help, the festival was even bigger and better than before. We had two marquees and added poetry readings. Some of the planned elements of the festival had to be cancelled because of the lack of funding.

In spite of the difficulties we attracted a lot of people, continued the tradition and even made a very small surplus.

Arts Festival 2003

2003 was a difficult year. Funding bids went in late and we did not attract all the grants that we had hoped. However, in a very positive display of community spirit and lots of self-help, the festival was even bigger and better than before. We had two marquees and added poetry readings. Some of the planned elements of the festival had to be cancelled because of the lack of funding.

In spite of the difficulties we attracted a lot of people, continued the tradition and even made a very small surplus.

Arts Festival 2004

The 2004 Festival was bigger and better than ever before. The total number of visitors to all the events was over 700 (70 at the opening event, 240 on Saturday 12 June, 260 on Sunday 13 June and around 130 in total at the 2 concerts). This was nearly double our highest attendance in previous years and reflected the wider scope of the festival and the number of events on offer.

Over 60 villagers contributed to the festival in some way; more than ever before. This was particularly encouraging as it suggested we were achieving our underlying objective of building and enhancing the community.

The Arts Festival made a significant surplus from advertising, sale of the programmes, commission on sales of art, catering and sales of concert tickets.

The surplus was split as follows: £500 to Welborne Village Hall, a welcome £500 contribution to the Church and £1000, put into a reserve fund to build flexibility for funding future Welborne Arts Festivals.

Arts Festival 2006

Evaluation of the sixth Welborne Arts Festival 10 and 11 June 2006

The theme was ” Building bridges”

“The beautiful quintessential rural Norfolk village of Welborne provides an idyllic setting for Welborne Arts Festival. Even before arriving at the festival the signage, parking and layout of the marquees within the grounds of the church and adjacent village hall communicates the professional approach of the festival organisers. Yet there was nothing officious about this most family-friendly of events where everyone receives a warm welcome. The organisers and artists clearly thoroughly enjoy the weekend as much as the public. There is much to see and do within the deceptively small environs of the festival; professional and amateur artists provide a wide range of visual arts exhibitions, music, readings, demonstrations and talks. There’s something for everyone in a relaxed and informal setting.”

Alistair Winch, Creative Arts East

Summary

The total number of people at all the events of Welborne Arts Festival 2006 was around 900, more than ever before, and in spite of a clash with England’s first game in the World Cup.
Generous funding and sponsorship from local and national charities, local councils, the lottery and local businesses met the major costs of the festival. The festival raised income from advertising in the programme, sales of the programme, commission on sales of art and books, catering, sales of concert tickets.

As always, we asked for lessons learnt for the future and will use them in planning future festivals.

Attendance at the festival

The preview evening was very well attended by around 100 people. We were honoured that the Lord Lieutenant of Norfolk formally opened the festival. This was followed by a short concert by choral group, Songbyrd.

[The Lord Lieutenant has now kindly agreed to be Patron of Welborne Arts Festival.]

Saturday daytime attendance was affected by the World Cup, at around 200 people, but Sunday daytime attendance was the highest ever, at over 360. Attendance at the two evening concerts was 54 at each.

Over 100 villagers were involved in some way, including organising, catering, stewarding, greeting, transport, flower arranging, car parking and over 30 people took part in the villagers visual art exhibition.

In addition, 140 children from four local schools (Barnham Broom, Garvestone, Mattishall and Yaxham) took part in the visual art project run for the festival by the Sainsbury Centre.
Chet Valley.

Achievement of our plans

We delivered all planned activities, as follows:

Our artist-in-residence, Pat Derrick, created a video of Welborne villagers growing and preparing food and this was shown in the church during the festival. She also performed at the festival. This joint South Norfolk Festivals Network project was organised by South Norfolk Council and Commissions East.

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts gave 140 pupils at four local schools, a day at the Sainsbury Centre followed by visual artists Sarah Florence and Jessica Perry working with the children at their schools. The work by the children was then displayed outside the church at the festival.

Sheringham Town Crier, Tony Nelson was at the festival all weekend, announcing events and very successfully encouraging people to move to the next activity.

The Dereham Times, publicised and sponsored a children’s photography competition, donated prizes and published the winning entries. The winning entries, along with 10 other photos, will be included in a calendar to be sold in aid of the festival during autumn 2006.

Readings and book signing by three Norfolk-based authors: Patricia Duncker, Louis de Bernières and Michèle Roberts.

Wymondham Players performed two of their specially commissioned, short plays.

Dereham library brought their mobile library to the festival, storytelling for young children, promoted Bookstart and recruited new members for the library.

A daytime programme of music of all sorts – some in the church and some outside.

Two evening concerts in the church – on Saturday, Laurette Pope, harp, and Lowri Porter, violin and on Sunday, one of folk’s leading singer/guitar pickers, Eddie Walker from Middlesbrough.

Inspiration in the church including the video by artist-in-residence, Pat Derrick, wonderful flower arrangements and writing by Dereham and District Writers Group, all on the festival theme of ‘Building Bridges’.

Visual art exhibitions by The Norwich Print Fair and North Norfolk Visual Artists Association

A high quality exhibition of visual art by villagers from Welborne and surrounding villages

The Grapevine Gallery from Norwich held ceramic painting workshops

Outcomes

Each element of the festival had clearly stated outcomes, but with hindsight there were too many and, in any event, it would not be possible to demonstrate all of them without a great deal of research.

A professional market research company carried out independent research at the festival for the South Norfolk Festivals’ Network. The results of this are not available at the time of writing.

Funding

We were successful in obtaining sufficient funding from:

National charity: Ernest Cook Trust (agreed that this grant can be carried forward to 2007)
Local charities: Norwich Town Close Estate Charity, John Jarrold Trust

Lottery funding: Awards for All

Local councils: South Norfolk Council, Norfolk County Council

Arts Festival 2001

Arts Festival 2007

Welborne Arts Festival

‘The skies above and earth below’

Our seventh festival, with the theme of ‘skies above and earth below’, included top quality visual art, music, literature, performance, archive film, flowers in the church, lunches, teas and ice creams.

Festival Highlights

VISUAL ART

Artist in Residence – Juliet Arnott

New Zealander Juliet Arnott is an artist and crafts person currently based in Norfolk. Her work reflects her respect for rural/indigenous craft work, and her interest in utilising naturally available surplus materials e.g. hazel/willow/found man-made objects.

For Welborne Arts Festival 2007 Juliet has made a large-scale outdoor sculpture nestled into the trees behind the church. This work will relate to the construction of shelter as seen in nature. The audience will be able to experience being inside, close to this woven structure. Juliet will be using locally sourced hazel from a sustainable source. Her construction technique makes reference to traditional coppice craft and basketry.

See more about Juliet on her website www.julietarnott.com

Juliet also worked on-site during the festival weekend – Saturday 16 June and Sunday 17 June

An outdoor exhibition included life size sculptures by Neal French, metal sculptures by Berni Marfleet and Sarah Florence’s deer.

Marquee exhibitions this year are by the Inprint group of poets and artists, our regular high quality villagers’ exhibition and all the entries in our photography competitions.

READINGS AND BOOK SIGNINGS

Beth Webb (Saturday and Sunday)

Beth is a children’s writer and storyteller from Somerset. ‘Junkyard Dragon’, for younger children, was published early in 2007. ‘Star Dancer’, the first of a quartet, is published in paperback May 2007.

Tessa West (Saturday and Sunday)

Tessa is a novelist who lives in Harleston. Her next book will be ‘Companion to Owls’.

Simon Scarrow (Saturday)

Simon is the author of many books about the Romans His new book ‘The Generals’ is published in May 2007.

Sarah Bower (Sunday)

Sarah teaches at UEA and is Literature Development Officer at Creative Arts East. Her new book ‘The Needle in the Blood’ is published on 2 May 2007.

Daljit Nagra (Sunday) as part of Norfolk Reads & Writes.

www.norfolkreadsandwrites.blogspot.com This link is devoted to Norfolk Reads & Writes.

WRITING WORKSHOPS

Beth Webb and Tessa West will be running workshops both days.

Dereham Library and the Dereham Times are encouraging individuals and local reading groups to read their work before the festival.

MUSIC

Live music of all sorts during Saturday 16 June, included performances by local schools as part of our 2007 schools project under conductor Sian Croose.

The Dereham Band performed at our Saturday evening concert in All Saints Church at 7.30 pm.

The East Anglian Traditional Music Trust provided all the music, gave talks and demonstrations throughout Sunday 17 June.

PERFORMANCE

We were delighted to present our first ever puppet show called ‘My Tree’, a contemporary fairy story (for children and families, performed by Sussex-based,TheatreRotto productions.

Foolhardy Folk Clowns (from 11.30 a.m. both days; workshop 2.30 p.m. Sunday 17 June)

Town Crier: We welcome back Sheringham Town Crier, Tony Nelson, who will make sure you know what is going on.

IN THE CHURCH

Archive film from the East Anglian Film Archive.

Flower Festival

Arts Festival 2009

Welborne Arts Festival

The World Around Us

Our eighth festival, with the theme of ‘the world around us’, included top quality visual art, music, literature, performance and children’s activities.

Keith Skipper the Deputy Lord-Lieutenant of Norwich opened the Welborne Arts Festival 2009

Festival Highlights:

Exhibitions

We were delighted to welcome the long established artists’ group, the Norwich Twenty Group. We also welcomed back the Norwich Print Fair as well as our regular high quality villagers’ exhibition.

Demonstrations

Kerry Buck – Collograph
Gary Martin – Etching (intaglio printing)
Sally Hirst – Photopolymer (relief printing)
Walk and Talk – Tracy Myers

Be Creative

The usual marquee was full of things to make and do, including throwing pots with internationally renowned Welborne potter Ruthanne Tudball.

In the Church

Worstead Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers

Readings and Booking Signings

Absolute Fiction
Mark cocker
Dean Parking
Andrea Porter
Giles Foden

Evening Concerts

Nappertandy and Friends – Irish Songs and Stories
Destination Swing – Cool Jazz with guitarist Jasper Smith

Arts Festival 2011

Welborne Arts Festival

In the Heart of Norfolk

Welborne Arts Festival , running for over 10 years, uses performance and exhibition to bring quality art to the heart of rural Norfolk. The Festival takes art out into the community and brings the community to art.

In 2011 the Welborne Art Festival featured the Big Top of Circus Ferrel as the centrepiece for dance, music and performance in a wider programme of exhibited art, literature and sport. The festival also welcomed personalities from the worlds of broadcasting (Helen McDermott) and sport (Mathew Roberts) as celebrity contributors.

Activities for 2011 included:

Visual Arts

Unlaced – clothing and the female form (Curated by Krys Leach)

Woven willow figures at Welborne Church (In partnership with ‘Art Alive in Churches’)
Breckland Artists at Welborne
The Norwich Print Fair Exhibition at Welborne
Villagers Marquee
Katherine Hamilton – Exhibiting in the Village Hall
Art Activity Marquee

Music & Entertainment

Fred’s House
The Minister’s Vision
Andy Kirkham
Howard Burton & Joe Tozer
John Ward & Mario Price
Mathew Williams & Hurdy Gurdy
Ceilidh in the Big Top with Pendragon
Clog dancing with ‘Fiddlesticks’
Time Travel Team present Station X – Music, Mystery and Mirth

Circus Ferrell at Welborne

During the festival, Circus Ferrel ran workshops for local schools and groups both in their colourful Big Top and in local care facilities. In addition to the workshops and impromptu entertainment during daylight hours, shows were also staged each evening.

Welborne Sport

In the year leading up to the 2012 Olympics sport was celebrated in different ways with:

Mathew Roberts (High jumper and one of Aviva’s development athletes)
Kensington Lodge Farm Equestrian Display Team

Dance

Dance Workshops run by Norfolk Dance
Ceilidh in the Big Top with Pendragon
Clog dancing with ‘Fiddlesticks’

Welborne Literature

Rachel Hore
Elspeth Barker
Helen McDermott

Arts Festival 2013

Welborne Arts Festival 2013

“Inspired by the Welborne Area”

Another first for the Welborne Arts Festival

For 2013, Welborne Arts Festival commissioned 7 short films from the School of Film, Television and Media Studies at the University of East Anglia. The remit was to produce films that would engage with Welborne, or the rural Norfolk community. Students spent the spring period in and around the environs of Welborne and Mattishall to produce films shown at the festival. Themes were diverse, including some fictional and non-fictional films, plus documentaries giving an insight into the lives and possessions of local residents.

One film, “The Mattishall Alien” was made by children from Mattishall primary school, another “NR20 by NR20” by local residents during a weekend workshop, both were edited by the students. The making of both of these films was documented by the UEA students running the workshops – we defy you not to smile at our antics, and to recognise the problems of frozen fingers during the coldest weather imaginable. The remaining five films were made entirely by the students.

Thanks go to the students who produced the films as part of their final year projects for the Professional Video Production module, their tutor, Roger Hewins, and the residents of NR20 for their enthusiasm and giving their time so generously.

Festival Highlights:

Literature and Drama

Louis de Bernières
Rapid Gambit
Lucilla Reeva
Four by Four
Schools performances directed by UEA drama students

Music and Dance

Jaya Dance and Haarrpal Panesar
Britten Sinfonia
Ouse Washes Molly Dances
Music Programme compiled by Rod Crockford
Pendragon

Visual Art

Norfolk Contemporary Craft Society
North Norfolk Organisation for the Visual Arts
Neal French
Katarzyna Coleman
Julia Sorrell
Ian sanders
Villagers Marquee

Demonstrations and Workshops

Jaya Dance and Haarrpal Panesar
Neal French
Ian Sanders
Activities & Art

Meadow Performers

Be Prepared
The Whale
Ouse Washes Molly Dances
Lucilla Reeve
Foolhardy Circus Acts
Vadimas (Close Up Magician)

Arts Festival 2015

Welborne Arts Festival 2015

“Art Meets Science”

For 2015, the Welborne Arts Festival theme was ‘Art Meets Science’. A mix of Art and Science with workshop topics ranging from Volcanoes and Earthquakes to Coastal Erosion taking place at various local schools both before and during the festival itself.

The local school based workshops in Barnham Broom, Mattishall and Yaxham, produced outstanding work on a range of topics all thanks to support from local people, personal sponsors and Ernest Cook Trust. Thanks go to the students who produced a mix of art and science displays including a reconstruction of a sea defence scheme, very topical for Norfolk! Our thanks also to David Kerr, our artist in residence.

Festival Highlights Included:

Literature and Drama