Where will the Beer Festival money go?

Thu 30 Jun 2005, 16:16

As the Chairman and Founder of the Charlbury Beer Festival, I feel it is important to make a statement about beer festival funds for 2006 as there are rumours and counter rumours circulating. As many of you know, we have this year (as in the first seven years) requested barrel sponsorship. Since 1997, we have raised nearly £30,000 for Charlbury School and at least £8,000 of this, over the years, has come directly from barrel sponsorship. However, the committee decided in September 2004 that there are other projects in Charlbury that could be supported by us. So we separated from the Charlbury School Association and are in the process of establishing our own charity. The committee has decided that the Charlbury School Association (and, therefore, the school) will remain the major beneficiary but we cannot at this time state what that means in monetary terms in 2006. Our charity is Charlbury Community Projects. It is not linked to any other charitable fund in Charlbury. We have not held any discussions on other benefactors. These discussions will commence after this year’s event. The reason for this follows: The beer festival is a very expensive event to stage and takes a great deal of work and a whole year to plan. The risk remains the same every year. This year, no CSA up-front costing is possible as their constitution does not allow them to support another charity. This is fully understood by ourselves and this has not caused any issues, whatsoever. The Chair of the CSA and I have spoken several times on this issue and everyone understands the reasons and agrees with them. As of today, eight committee members are currently exposed by an amount close to £2100. This is all their own money and they have covered the cost for their own reasons. Three of these eight committee members still have children at the school, the other five have loaned the money to keep the event alive. The memorial hall capacity is close to being exceeded. It has been close for several years and is becoming a potential Health & Safety issue. We are currently planning the 2006 event and the likelihood of transferring into a temporary structure somewhere else in Charlbury is becoming more of a reality every day. We simply need more space. However, in 2006, this will increase the upfront cost even further as temporary infrastructure is inherently expensive to hire. Therefore, if the event is to continue, a step-change is required that needs funds. The 2005 event has to provide these funds for 2006. We expect profits from the event to continue to grow year on year, but we need to take a ‘step’ to go further. This is why we cannot state how much money will go to the school or what percentage or where any other money could go. The beer festival has never had a bad year – let’s hope 2005 isn’t that year, or there may not be an event in 2006. I hope we celebrate the 20th Charlbury Beer Festival in 2017 raising in excess of £20,000 for local projects. If the school remains the major beneficiary, I think you should all see where we are going.