… to everyone who helped make yesterday so special.

Here is our first batch of photos from yesterday.  We’ll be posting more photos and some video online later so please do check back.  We have already received some photos via email and if you have any you would like to send us we’d love to see them.  Please email them to newburycarnival@googlemail.com

Note that if you click on the panel below you’ll be taken to our online album where you can view photos individually.

These were taken by one of the Carnival Team rather than our official photographer, David Hatfull of Diem Photography.  (David just needs to sort out the photos from a wedding he attended on Saturday before he can do ours.  So it may be later this week before we have a complete set of pictures for you – please keep looking!)

John Rankin School's "Shrek went to the carnival"

Congratulations to the following winners of this year’s Carnival Parade:

Best Business Entry – Newbury Town Council: Once upon a time … we were all kids

Best Community Entry - West Berkshire Minority Ethnic Forum: Once upon a time … in a land far away

Best Individual Entry – Peter Bosley: Laurel & Hardy in Another Fine Mess

Best Schools Entry – John Rankin School: Shrek goes to the Carnival

Best Walking Entry – Northcroft Lifesaving Club: Shark’s tale

Best Youth Group Entry – Newbury College: Once upon a time … a small college opened in Newbury

Most Creative Entry – The Winchcombe School: The wind in the willows

And special congratulations to:

The overall winner of Newbury Carnival 2009 - John Rankin School

Once again, we are extremely grateful to the companies who sponsored this year’s awards and helped to support this community event.

Good morning!  We hope you enjoyed your lie in (see below).

While you were sleeping, the night shift in the Carnival Control Centre were working flat out.  A vast team of Cardinal operatives* descended on Newbury putting up signs and the Met Team poured over their siWeed 2000 super computer churning out forecast after forecast.  As you will see, the forecast** suggests light showers in the morning and a perfect afternoon.  Note that there might be some strongish gusts of wind, so do make sure that anything on your float or fete stall which might blow away is properly tied down.

So, see you in Goldwell Park (you know where that is now, don’t you?) between 12.00pm and 6.00pm for the fete and other festivities and in the town centre between 2.00pm and 3.00pm for the parade.  Good luck to everyone involved and have a great day!

Today is a day for us to celebrate Newbury.

Newbury Carnival provides a wonderful chance for all of us who live in the town and surrounding areas to come together and join in a day of fun, whilst at the same time helping to raise funds for the many charities and local community groups who work so hard to make this a good place to live.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of you for participating, whether you are taking part in the Carnival Parade, have a stall in the park or whether you have come to support this event by watching and visiting the Carnival Fete.  I’d like to wish good luck to each of the Parade entrants and I look forward to seeing you and meeting as many of you as I can later today.

I do hope you have a very enjoyable Newbury Carnival 2009.

Kuldip Singh Kang

Mayor of Newbury

1. Have a lie in*, preferably with a light breakfast in bed (you’ll want to leave room for lunch in the park).
2. Head to Goldwell Park (next to the Northcroft Centre, as if we had to remind you,) for lunch – a wide range of refreshments will be available as you can see from the list of stalls on our fete page – and visit a selection of stalls, fairground rides, etc.  Don’t forget to bring a picnic rug and/or chairs and a camera.
3. At about 1.30 pm, make your way to the Parade route to enjoy the build up to the 2009 Carnival Parade, including street entertainers and Keep Off The Grass music at the Pig and Paper.  (Scroll down for more details about that.)  Treat yourself (and, if you’re feeling charitable, your family) to an ice cream.
4. Enjoy watching the wide variety of entries as they pass by, with over 600 people taking part.
5. Return to Goldwell Park for arena displays and much, much more.  If you have young children they’ll love the Hagstone Storyteller who is perfoming at approximately 3.15pm and 3.45pm. Don’t forget to buy a raffle ticket (grand draw at 5.00pm) and watch the prizegiving for the Parade winners at approx 4.00pm.
6. Have a bit of a sit down after all that excitement and then head happily home.

How does that sound?  In case you missed it the first time, here’s a short video from the Newbury Weekly News about the last carnival in 2007.

* N.B. Item 1 probably doesn’t apply if you are involved with a Parade entry and certainly doesn’t if you’re one of the organisers!

Two parade participants and a member of the team

As you can imagine, the scene here at Carnival Control Centre (see link to the left) is pretty hectic with just a day to go. Tomorrow some 600 hundred people will join a parade through the centre of Newbury, 60 traders and community groups will arrive at Goldwell Park (or Goldwell-Park-Next-To-The-Northcroft-Centre as it’s come to be known since many people were uncertain of its location!)  to set up stalls and thousands of people (that’s you) will come into town to join in the fun.

There’s a surprising amount that needs to be done to make all this happen. Lots of meetings have been held, hundreds of emails sent and telephone calls made, posters and newspaper inserts have been designed, funds have been raised through a variety of ingenious means, routes planned, stewards recruited, lorries sourced, entrants briefed, websites updated  and so on (and on!).  It has been suggested that, in the interests of crowd maximisation, we also had a hand in arranging that there wouldn’t be a British finalist at Wimbledon this year but that’s a scurrilous idea and we couldn’t possibly comment.

More about the Carnival Team after the event.  For now, can we remind you that if there are going to be future Newbury Carnivals we are going to need lots of help.  If you are interested in joining the team or would like to find out what’s involved, come to our marquee at the Carnival Fete and have a chat with one of us.  And don’t forget to buy a raffle ticket while you’re there!

Newbury Carnival 2009′s official photographer is David Hatfull of www.diemphoto.co.uk. Here are some of his excellent photos of the 2007 carnival to get you in the mood for Sunday.  Be sure to visit this website after the carnival to see his photos from this year.

We would also love to see YOUR photos and videos from Newbury Carnival 2009.  You can either upload them to an online photo sharing service like Picasa or Flickr and email us a link or you can email your favourite photos to newburycarnival@googlemail.com and we’ll publish the best of them here.

Carnival is always FANTASTIC FUN!  But there is a serious side to it as well.

Our nominated charity this year is West Berkshire Mencap and several Parade participants will be helping us to collect money for them as they walk along Bartholomew and Northbrook Streets.  In addition, many other Parade entrants will be hoping to raise money for their chosen charity or local community group, while other organisations will be fund raising at the Carnival Fete.

PLEASE help if you can. Why not have a look now and see whether you have any spare change in wallets, purses, and pockets which you can bring along on Sunday and put into someone’s collection bucket?  There are lots of people who are working hard to decorate lorries and make costumes, so that they can encourage you to give generously to charities which affect the lives of people in and around Newbury.  Let’s support them if we can – and have fun at the same time.

Apart from you, we hope, there will be nearly 60 stalls offering a wide range of refreshments, games, things to buy and other entertainment.  We’ve just added the latest list to the fete page.  With arena displays including bands and dancers, classic cars to admire before and after the Parade and a funfair throughout, there’s lots to do in Goldwell Park between 12.00pm and 6.00pm this Sunday.