Congratulations to Jenny Moorcroft, who yesterday became Newbury Carnival Queen 2009.  In front of an enthusiastic crowd, Jenny received her crown from previous post holder Gemma Legg at last night’s Mayor’s Concert at Newbury Racecourse.  Jenny will be back at the racecourse in her official Carnival capacity on Saturday 30th May, as well as taking part in other events leading up to 5th July.  We wish her all the very best in her new role and much success for the year ahead.   We would also like to thank Mayor Phil Barnett for inviting the Carnival to be a part of this fantastic evening.

The Newbury Carnival Float-o-Meter has just registered another entry which means we’re now up to a total of 30 and we still haven’t entered what is traditionally the busiest booking period.

If you’re thinking of entering the parade it would be a good idea to submit your entry form soon.  Although you can enter up to one week before the event, it’s a good idea to start a bit of planning now.  You don’t have to decide on a theme for your float before you send in the form – click on the How to Enter link on the left for details.

Don’t forget that you don’t have to use a vehicle – a simple ‘walking entry’ can be very effective and it’s good to have a mix of floats on lorries, marching bands and, well, whatever means you can think of from getting from the start to the end of the route.   Motorbikes, bi-cycles, period cars, skate boards, buggies and stilts – as well as lorries – have all featured in past parades.

The response to our fund raising campaign has been magnificent. Scroll down the logos on the right of this page and you’ll see that all sectors of the community have contributed – businesses large and small, the Town Council and the Greenham Common Trust have all pledged sponsorship. Others have provided prizes for our raffle.  In addition to thanking them for their support, we’re very grateful to Michael Smith, our Treasurer, for all his hard work.

But, we still need to raise more funds to ensure a great day out for everyone.  So if you’d like to play a part in Newbury’s biggest community event, by providing sponsorship or a prize, we would be delighted to hear from you. You too could have your name alongside our growing list of local companies and organisations who are helping make Newbury Carnival 2009 happen.

Send us an email to newburycarnival@googlemail.com and we will contact you to discuss how you can help.

What is a carnival, exactly?  Good question!  Since you’re now wondering about the answer, we’ve looked it up.  We particularly like the idea that it’s a ‘frenetic, disorganized (and often comic) disturbance, suggestive of a large public entertainment’.

A carnival is, of course, much more than a parade.  And the ‘much more’ in the case of Newbury Carnival is the Carnival Fete, this year taking place in Goldwell Park.  (That’s the park next to the Northbrook Leisure Centre.)

Here’s what Bryan Harper, Supreme Commander of Newbury Carnival (as he never refers to himself, but he isn’t writing this) said about the Carnival Fete in a recent press release:

“Organisers of Newbury Carnival 2009 have announced plans for the Carnival Fete to be held throughout the afternoon on Carnival Day Sunday 5th July.

Traditionally the Fete has been held in Victoria Park, but, due to health and safety concerns of the adjacent Park Way development, has been relocated this year to Goldwell Park. Organisers hope the change of venue will add a new dimension to the event.  Goldwell Park is a terrific venue, with plenty of space for the many thousands who flock to the fete before and after the Parade.”   Bryan added “The Fete is an important part of the Carnival, particularly as it is the focus for the end of the Parade and where we will be announcing the all important results and overall Parade Winner.”

The change of venue means that the route of the Parade has been altered to turn left at the Clock House, to finish in the Old Bath Road, rather than turning right and finishing in Park Way.

If you would like a stall at the fete please email us via fete.newburycarnival@googlemail.com 

If you run a stall at a school or village fete, or even if you don’t, why not book a space and come along to raise some funds?

The latestNewbury Carnival ‘follower’ is Okehampton Carnival – Hello @okecarnival!

To sign up to twitter visit www.twitter.com.

West Berkshire Mencap Chief Executive Leila Ferguson with Bryan Harper, Chairman of Newbury Carnival 2009

West Berkshire Mencap has been selected as our nominated charity for 2009. Leila Ferguson, Chief Executive, said: “We are delighted to be associated with this very active and important organisation and will be publishing more information on our nominated charity very soon. ”

In the meantime, here is a link to their website.

… for full details click here.

It’s looking very promising for a bumper entry for this year’s parade!

It would be good to see some of our secondary schools and more businesses in the parade.  The day provides an excellent – and free – way of promoting your organisation.

We are also organising post-parade events in Goldwell Park (next to the Northcroft Centre) so, in addition to joining the parade, you could think about running a stall to raise funds and attract new members or customers.  The park events will  feature arena performances, so if you’d like to put on a display do get in touch.

If so, start following Newbury Carnival to get all the latest news.  When new items are added to the home page of this website our Twitter account is automatically updated and we’ll also some direct tweets from time to time.

If none of the above made any sense at all go to www.twitter.com to find out more about Twitter, but briefly it’s a way of providing short updates about what you, or your organisation, are doing.  You can ‘follow’ anyone who has a Twitter account and their updates will appear on your very own Twitter page.  Many people update and read their twitter account using mobiles.  Here’s the ‘twitter feed’ of a well known and very enthusiastic user.  There are lots of others: here’s another quite famous user.   The BBC and lots of other big news organisations have their own Twitter feeds, so one for Newbury Carnival was an obvious next step.

Still confused?  Try watching this short video.

Members of the Carnival organising team at the Strictly Volunteering event

… to everyone who volunteered to help with this year’s carnival at the Volunteer Burea West Berkshire’s Strictly Volunteering event on Saturday.  The team at our stand also spoke to a number of organisation’s who are interested in organising floats.  Our total number of entries is already up to 7 at the time of writing – see our parade entries page for details.