Allen Valleys Community Arts Annual General Meeting (Agenda and Minutes)

Our Annual General Meeting took place on Monday 23rd June at Allendale Village Hall. Please see below for agenda and minutes:

Agenda

Welcome and apologies

Chair’s report

Treasurer’s report

Election of board members / officers

2025 events

Any other business

Minutes

Welcome and apologies

Tim, Sue, Oran, Kerry, Peter, Glynn, Craig and Phillip from committee attended the meeting, with Chris Garner and Chris Bonsall (Chair and treasurer of the Village Hall) and Alison Fothergill also in attendance.

Apologies received from Nick, Kate and Caitlin.

Chair’s Report

See below. A special thank you was made to all of our volunteers and Chris and Chris and all the volunteers at the Village hall, without whom we couldn’t survive!

Treasurer’s Report

Tim updated meeting on the finical position of AVCA for year up to April 2025.

Election of board members / officers

Not required.

2025 events

Folk Festival, Frankie Archer gig in October and Christmas Concert and NYE Ceilidh in December.

Any Other Business

Chris Garner praised our social media output and a short discussion about social media took place.

AVCA Chair’s Report April 2025

It has been a busy 12 months for Allen Valleys Community Arts.

We have organised 4 events since our last AGM: the folk festival in September, the NYE ceilidh and a couple of one-off concerts involving Saul Rose and James Delarre and The Pear Blossoms (with Noah, Paddy and Oran supporting) and a talk by the author, Rob Chapman about Syd Barrett and Nick Drake.

As well as a full programme of music in the village hall and St. Cuthbert’s Church, the festival included dance, a programme of workshops and a guided walk, the burning of the Allendale Wolf bonfire, music at the Forge Café and Studios and the Lion House pub. The festival also included a number of spoken word events for the first time. Many of the events were free to festival goers and local people and were well attended.

The music during our festival weekend, from the very beginning with Anna and Jessie of Watersmeet and Kathryn Tickell and her band, The Darkening on the Friday night, all the way through the weekend to the Sunday afternoon finale with Johnny and Lillie Flynn, was incredible: The energy and passion of the bands and artists was something to behold.

Our spoken word events were a lovely blend of self-expression, social connection and artistic creativity and were really well received by our festival crowd.

Dance played a huge part, as it always does, over our festival weekend with Crook Morris, Star & Shadow Dance and Hadrian Clog entertaining our festival goers in the village centre on the Saturday of the festival.

Our diverse mix of workshops (which featured everything from yoga through to songwriting) were well attended and then, what can you say about our burning of the Allendale Wolf bonfire in the village centre on the Saturday evening of the festival? Thanks to Bill, Ashley and Jonah.

A brilliant and enjoyable year and a huge thank you to everyone who supported and helped us on the way. Thank you!

Planning for the 2025 festival is well underway and following a local and online sale of tickets earlier in the year, weekend passes have sold out. A Christmas concert is also being planned for early December and the NYE ceilidh will take place again in the village hall on the evening of the 31st December. Planning is underway for another one-off gig too.

Our board is made up of myself, Craig Atkinson (chair), Tim Reed (treasurer), Peter Aldcroft, Glynn Galley, Nick Pepper, Oran Villiers-Stuart, Caitlin Kendall, Kate Maughan, Phillip Bell, Bryony Villiers-Stuart and Hollie-Ann Coleman. Kerry Crellin and Sue Reed are also involved in the group and have made significant contributions to the work of AVCA since joining us.

I would like to thank the Allen Valleys Community Arts team for all of their hard-work, continued enthusiasm and dedication to the cause.

Craig Atkinson

AVCA - Chairperson

Some thank yous …

A special thank you to our volunteers. It takes lots of hard-working, talented and passionate people to keep the Allen Valley Folk Festival going and without our community of Volunteer Stewards, this festival could not exist. Throughout the festival weekend, our dedicated team of volunteers act as the public face of the Allen Valleys Folk Festival, welcoming our visitors to our spaces for performances and events and ensuring they have a safe and enjoyable experience.

A thank you to our team of volunteers who decorate our venues so beautifully.

Thank you to our comperes over the weekend: Heather, James, Sam and Phillip.

Thank you to Chris and John and all the volunteers at the village hall (and Gary, the caretaker) for all they do on the lead up and over our festival weekend and at our one off events, like the New Year;’s Eve Ceilidh (We couldn’t do it without you. THANK YOU!).

A thank you to Shirley and Chris and Martin at our local church for their help and advice and for letting us use the church and church hall as venues over our festival weekend.

Thank you to Sam and Jane at Higher Ground for the use of The Medway Building and for also growing and providing much of the vegetables that are used by Chris and her catering volunteers to provide food at the village hall to our festival goers over the festival weekend.

Thanks to all at The Forge Café and Studios for hosting our music and open mic sessions on the Saturday morning of the festival.

Thanks to Emma and Cordelia at Emma’s Coffee and Sweets for being a venue for our spoken word events and to all at The Lion House for hosting our Friday night gig and various ad hoc music sessions.

Thanks to Wendy for the use of Baynes Field for our campers and thank you to the Burnley Community, Glynn and Wendy, Mon and all those who provided accommodation to our bands and artists

Thanks to Dave and Rob, our sound engineers and Jona and Noah, our lighting engineers. They all go that extra mile for us. Thank you.

Thanks to Bill, Ashley and Jonah for their bonfire spectacular on the Saturday night of our festivals. The wolf bonfire has become one of the highlights of the festival weekend. Thanks to John and all at the Tar Bar’ls Association for the use of their barriers and to Damien and all at MKM ( Hexham) for providing the sand base for the bonfire. Thanks to Molly Agar (and her sister, Bryony) for coming to the festival with their wolf puppet too!

Thanks to Peter McGlynn for our fabulous flyer designs and designs used on our merchandise and in our print media and on our social media too. Thanks to Natalie Reid for our lovely festival map design and Louise Hick for our new Allen Valleys Folk Festival ‘wolf’ design. Thanks to Chris Walton for our banners designs and thanks to Robson Print for all of their support of our printing needs.

A massive thank you to Ed and Mel George and all at Treehorn Offshore for their generous support of our workshop programme.

A huge thank you to the Allendale Co-op (especially Kirstin and Neville) for their support with printing and advertising and selling tickets (and funding in the past too).

A thank you to the Parish Council for their support and to Allendale Brew Co. for their beer sponsorship.

Thanks to the North Pennine National Landscape, the Sir James Knott Trust, The Joicey Trust and Phillip James Bell for all of their financial support of our festival.

Thanks to Natalie at the Hexham Courant for the lovely press coverage about our festival.

And lastly, a massive thanks to all the artists, dancers and performers who made the festival weekend so special. Thank you all.