Ladies & Gentleman, Friends of feva, fellow feva committee members,

Many thanks for your attendance this evening; I know it is a busy time for everyone, so thank you for taking the time to show your support of the feva festival by attending this Annual General Meeting.

I would like to start by singing the praises of everyone involved in the staging of feva2011. We were blessed with good weather, and the 10 days and evenings of the festival showed record attendances, with many events selling out very quickly.

 And by everyone I mean everyone from shop-keepers and traders for getting involved in dressing windows, our marvellous volunteers who undertake the hidden logistics of staging the festival, and indeed the ticket buying public of Knaresborough and beyond for digging deep into dwindling finances to show their support by putting bums on seats.

Thanks also to all our sponsors, especially Knaresborough Town Council, Harrogate Borough Council, North Yorkshire County Council, & Knaresborough Renaissance who have all supplied grant funding.

Thanks also to George Moore for their continued support, and Knaresborough Lions club for both their financial support and for stepping in at short notice to help staff events. Thanks also the Knaresborough Rotarians for their continued support.

Feva is a unique festival, unique in that we are able to stage a 10 day festival without any paid staff. Feva is also unique in that we are able to stage a festival which has such diversity in the art and culture that it stages, and I am pleased to be able to announce that in 2012 we will be spreading ourselves even wider with a Hip Hop day being staged at the new Stockwell community centre. This event which is aimed at teenagers is helping us to engage further with the youngster of Knaresborough.

Feva is also unique in that it is a not-for-profit organisation. We don’t make any money out of the festival. Our aims are to maintain an annual float to enable the festival to be staged each year. We are not a commercial organisation able to seek loans or any other form of finance. We rely heavily on public grants and private donations. Save for our meagre administration costs, every penny of income is spent on paying the artists and entertainers that perform during the 10 days of the festival.

And here lies our greatest challenge for 2012. In the face of dwindling public finance, our grant funding is likely to be cut considerably. In this period of prolonged austerity, I feel it is even more important for Knaresborough as a community that thrives, that we are able to stage an arts festival equal too if not better than last year. When economic times are tough, as they will be in 2012, art and entertainment become important influences in people’s lives and feva is able to provide people with experiences which can give an uplift to the life of our community.

So don’t let anyone tell you feva is not important to this town. It now has a history and a strong brand. I want to close by thanking the members of your executive committee. They each work tirelessly in order to stage this festival. They do so sometimes in the face of unwarranted criticism, yet they strive on, smiling through their angst, to produce our wonderful, joyous feva celebration each August. They all deserve the gratitude of everyone who values art and entertainment in Knaresborough. They are the real unsung ‘stars’ of feva.