Or is it the other way around?
The first two weeks of November are very busy for our small team of fundraisers in Bridgwater and district. Many of you will know that many charities and not-for-profit organisations from all over somerset are invited to attend the carnivals as official collectors, they often don fancy dress or hi visibility gear and spend the evening attempting to relieve the many thousands of spectators of their cash to ensure the carnival continues to survive for years to come. Naturally the carnival committees thank the carnival charities with a donation to their funds ranging from 40% to 60%.
What you may not know is the that there are many other roles that charity volunteers do in support of carnival, these range from stewarding car parks and grandstands, manning collection vehicles to selling programmes and totally awesome toys (or TAT for short!). The charities also help with counting the street collection the next day. Carnival runs entirely on its army of volunteers, whether they are directly volunteering for the carnival committee or indirectly through a charity, the volunteers are an integral part of the carnival.
Photographs courtesy of A&KPhotography Carnival Photos
The team from Bridgwater & District Cancer Research UK have been involved in three of the Somerset carnivals; Bridgwater, Burhnam on Sea & North Petherton.
Bridgwater was a very busy day and we had a large team in toe. We operate the Park & Ride from Junction 24 in conjunction with Buses of Somerset and successfully processed over 450 cars and 2000 people, this was a great challenge but the team took it in their stride. Removing this number of cars from the town centre is an important part of the carnival traffic plan and makes it so much easier for spectators leaving the town with easy access to the motorway. We would like to thank the bus company for their continued support as well as Bridgwater Carnival Committee for the opportunity to fundraise in this manner. We also had a strong team out collecting at the carnival (including some of those from the Park and Ride who pulled a double shift!), we provided stewards for Grandstands and the disabled viewing area as well as manning another car park in the town. One of our Grandstands is turned into We were in attendance the next day to help with the count just to round off a very busy weekend of fundraising.
The following Monday we were out in force at Burnham on Sea Carnival where we assisted with the collection and the count the next day. Five days later we find ourselves at North Petherton where we not only formed part of the collecting team, we manned a collection cart with driver and support crew, provided sweepers to clear the missed coins and even provided an MC to gee up the crowds and get them giving more! We were once again back on the Sunday morning to assist with the count and even provided some cakes for our fellow counters!!
Thank you to Bridgwater, Burhnam on Sea & North Petherton Carnival Committees for supporting us in our fundraising.
If you are at all interested in joining our volunteer 'army' for the carnivals in November 2019 then we would be delighted to hear from you. Alternatively you may like to get involved before November 2019, please let us know