Join the Parade!
Festival Parade – 25th June – 11 am.
It has been two years since we had Grassington Festival, and so much has happened since 2019. Our Festival will be one of the first in the area to go ahead after the restrictions of the Pandemic, and we want it to be amazing!
This year is all about saying Thank You. We want to recognise and celebrate all those groups and people who went the extra mile during the Pandemic to make our lives a little easier; we never got a chance to do it at the time, so we want to do it now. Places are available to any organisation you belong to or would like to nominate. All we ask is that you turn up in your uniform or bright clothes, holding a banner or board that tells everyone watching who you are.
The parade participants will meet at Colve End car park on Grassington Road at 10.30 am. Led by the fantastic festival regulars, The Loud Minority Samba Band, we will set off to do a circuit of Grassington at about 10.45am. For those of you that know the village, you will realise this takes all of about 30 mins. The parade will finish in Grassington Square, where we hope you will stay for a while, relax, soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the free entertainment that will be on offer throughout the day.
We do need to know numbers in advance for health and safety reasons, so if you want to take part, please email penny@grassington-festival.org.uk giving details of your organisation and the number of people in your group. We hope you can join us and help make this parade one to remember!
Be a Part of History – Tales of The Dales Pandemic
As we come out of the final round of Covid restrictions, it would be easy to forget what we have been through over the last two years; to put it all behind us and move on. For some, that may be possible, but there is a sense of unfinished business for many others. A feeling of missed chances and might-have-beens. A gap – a need to express, to someone, anyone, just how it felt to be you, at that time, in this place.
There are many anecdotes of good deeds. Communities pulling together to help the less fortunate and more vulnerable among us keep safe and stay sane. There were initiatives to ring people living on their own, deliveries of food parcels, prescriptions, dog walking, and so much more.
Tales of The Dales Pandemic is about those events. We want your stories of how you helped or were helped during this time.
We want to make a book and a short documentary that recounts your story so we can have a permanent record of this singular moment in our modern history. We would also like to use some of your contributions at our Local Heroes awards presentation later in the year.
You can re-tell your experience as a short story or poem, or you could express it as a drawing or picture. If you are more media-minded, you can send us a video, performance piece or song; we don’t mind.
If you would like to contribute but are not sure how to go about it, we will be holding two free writer’s workshops during the festival to help anyone interested. Check the events guide on the website for dates and times.
We would love as much content as possible but, sadly, cannot guarantee that every submission will be included. Please send any content you would like us to consider to dalestales@grassington-festival.org.uk.
Local Heroes Awards
In line with making our 40th Anniversary the year we say Thank You, we will be hosting our own Local Heroes Awards later in the year.
You can nominate any individual or organisation that you feel deserves recognition for the efforts and contributions they made to help others during the Pandemic.
To make a nomination, simply email heroes@grassington-festival.org.uk with the name of your nomination and a description of why they should receive an award, and we will add them to the list.
If you are a business that would like to either offer a gift or help sponsor the awards, please also get in touch via the same email.