Fears for future of festival due to lack of fresh blood

The Anstruther Harbour Festival is under threat of closing down if organisers can't find some new people to take the event forward.
The Anstruther Harbour Festival.The Anstruther Harbour Festival.
The Anstruther Harbour Festival.

The organising committee for the annual event is comprised of just five volunteers who are all over 60, and it is feared that unless new members step up, the festival could soon be a thing of the past.

Now a public meeting is being held to see if anyone will step forward to save the Harbour Festival.

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Martin Dibley, chairman of the organising committee, said there would be fears for the festival if no one came forward to help.

“It would be in danger, because we have to start to get premissions in place very early next year and unless we’ve got the volunteers we can’t go ahead,” he said.

“It takes six months to organise these events, and if we’ve got to do fundraising to run the event and we have to book bands, entertainers, and a marquee, then these things need to be done over the winter.

“But we need to know we have the back-up of a strong committee to do it.

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“Basically, the last couple of years, the harbour festival has been run by five core volunteers and I’m the youngest one, and three of the others are over 70. We need some more volunteers, younger volunteers to take the harbour festival forward.

“Because I work, so on the Saturday I’m in my shop and I’m not at the festival. Another member runs a guest house so he’s got his business to run and he can’t be there.

“So the running of it on the day takes several people. We need younger, fitter, more energetic people.

“We need two or three more volunteers to step forward to take on some of the organising of the events. We need fresh pairs of hands, fresh eyes, fresh blood, fresh ideas,and a younger look at things to vitalise the events.

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“When this generation goes into retirement, we need the next generation to come along to take it on.

“It’s a very worthwhile festival. It’s very rewarding to do. It’s the only festival that Anstruther has in the summer, and it attracts thousands of people.”

If you’d like to volunteer, go to the meeting on Thursday, October 19, at 7.30pm in the Burgh Chambers meeting room of Anstruther Town Hall.