Planning for summer already? It can only be the Leytonstone Festival! (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Planning for summer already? It can only be the Leytonstone Festival!

2:30pm Thursday 19th February 2009 in

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It may be cold outside, but tucked up in a warm corner of the Epicentre, an enthusiastic group meets to plan this year’s Leytonstone Festival.

For the last couple of years I’ve tried to attend at least one event, just because I have felt I should support this arts and music festival on my doorstep. “Use it or lose it”, right? But so far my support has been limited to passive enjoyment – plus a few emails enquiring about disabled access to the venues.

This year I am grabbing the bull with both feet, and all other sorts of mixed metaphors – I’m getting involved “properly”. So it was with curiosity and trepidation that I attended the Festival’s planning meeting last month.

I was pleasantly surprised – around the room were a variety of people volunteering their ideas and time. Everyone was friendly and open to ideas, so by the end I was less daunted, more inspired and ready to play a part! (Not literally, obviously; that’s best left to the Woodhouse Players.) The Festival plans are still at an early stage but the schedule is starting to come together. We can expect repeats of the What’s Cookin’ picnics, the Youth Fest and the Star of India’s curry and quiz night. And as well as a variety of plays, dance and music, there will also be new delights such as a marathon six hour performance of work by Cornelius Cardew (a composer who lived here in Leytonstone) and a library where you don’t borrow books, but people!

The visual arts will be represented as well, building on the success of last year’s Arts Trail – I’ll be exhibiting my own work as part of this, but I am keeping the topic a surprise (except to say that it’s not electricity pylons this time, and it will involve still and moving images).

So things are taking shape, but there’s plenty of room for more! The Festival runs from 4 – 19 July, and if you or your organisation feel you have something to add, you’d be welcome.

Just come to the next planning meeting – Wednesday 11 March, 7.30pm at the Epicentre next to Cathall Leisure Centre.

If you can’t make that, you can just email Nick Tiratsoo (Festival Chair) on NTiratsoo@aol.com – or if you’re interested in exhibiting visual art, contact Anna on leytonstone08art.trail@yahoo.co.uk . Maybe this is the year when you can make it happen.

And of course I’ll be making sure that disabled access is included on the programme this time around!