Introduction
The annual four day Tenterden Folk Festival came to an end with a very successful event in October 2024. At that point the Trustees decided the festival was no longer viable in its current form with the longer term effects of the Covid pandemic, the financial crisis and the age and health of those involved in the organisation. So what does the future hold for Tenterden Folk Day Trust?
The Tenterden Folk Sessions
Tenterden Folk Club started in The Eight Bells in 1992 and, despite several changes in venue, it has been running consistently ever since. The current format is a free folk song and music session in a bar. With effect from 13th November 2024 the sessions have been relocate to the main ground floor bar at The Tenterden Club on the second Wednesday of the month. This move may also offer the opportunity to hold folk club events in the upstairs function room with special guest artists.
Around Kent Folk magazine
The Trust took over publishing AKF following the sad deaths of Bob and Kathy Drage in December 2017. Since then circulation has grown, more editorial, and colour have added so that now approximately 700 copies of AKF are printed every two months and distributed to folk clubs in Kent, Surrey and Sussex. The magazine is also available to read online. The Trust aims to continue to build on this success.
School workshop
The Trust has been involved with running educational workshops on folk song and dance in primary and secondary schools in Ashford and wider Kent for many years. The workshops involve professional folk musicians going into schools to work with the students and staff. They started as a small part of KCC’s Kent Festival. For the last few years we have been working with the special needs students at Wyvern School. These workshops have been temporarily suspended due to lack of funding. Both the Trust and the school are keen to restart them as soon as funding is available.
Occasional barn dances or ceilidhs
In 2024 the Trust ran two successful fundraising barn dances, as well as the festival barn dance, at the Old Dairy Tap Rooms. We hope to stage further barn dances or ceilidhs in the future.
Occasional concerts and special events
For over 30 years the Trust regularly promoted occasional special events during the year, often in co-operation or partnership with folk clubs, Councils or other local organisations. We worked with Ashford Borough Council, Kent County Council, Produced in Kent, The Kent County Show, Folk at the Drum, Revelation Ashford and others. The Trust is keen to continue to work with local organisations to promote folk music in Tenterden and Ashford.
Consultancy
The Trustees and our contacts have wide experience of organising folk events and can offer consultancy services and advice to other organisations to help to include folk song, music, dance and traditions in their programme of events.
Alan Castle, Margaret White and Richard Cartwright
Trustees of Tenterden Folk Day Trust / Tenterden Folk Festival
Posted 9th November 2024
Following a highly successful Tenterden Folk Festival 2024 which took place from Thursday 3rd to Sunday 6th October we are sad to announce that the Trustees have decide not to continue to run this ever-popular annual event. This was an exceedingly difficult and emotional decision and was taken for a variety of reasons which are not all financial and some of which we would like to explain further.
Firstly, the festival has, for over 30 years, been organised and promoted by the trustees and a very small voluntary committee of folk enthusiasts and local people. The average age of the three current trustees is now something over 70 and for a number of years they have been considering how to hand the festival to a younger generation of folk enthusiast but have not been able to achieve this, although some excellent and very active new committee members were successfully recruited over the last few years.
Since the festival started in 1993 the amount of complex and ever-changing rules and regulations with which the festival has to comply has grown rapidly as the festival grew and developed and the amount of time the trustees have to devote to it has of course grown in line with it.
When the festival started in 1993 the total cost was just a couple thousand pounds, but this has grown to over £50,000. With the Covid pandemic and the economic crisis of the last few years, more and more time has had to be devoted to fundraising and the availability of grants for arts and music, especially traditional English folk song, music, dance, and crafts, has plummeted. After taking appropriate advice, the trustees cannot see this position changing in the next three or four years. Despite best efforts the trustees have been unable to obtain any long-term funding or financial guarantees. As a well-respected registered charity of long standing, the festival cannot take financial risks, which would ultimately become the personal responsibility of the three trustees, therefore few options remained.
The trustees felt that it was best to go out on a high while the festival is still a thriving popular event and still entirely solvent and did not want to see it start to decline and struggle hence the taking of incredibly sad decision at this time.
We are very grateful to everyone who has support Tenterden Folk Festival over the last 30 plus years especially Tenterden Town Council, Ashford Borough Council and Kent County Council, all the public houses and venues, all the businesses, trusts and organisations that have sponsored the festival or advertised in the programme, all our loyal and friendly suppliers, and of course the town and people of Tenterden.
We would also like to thank all the artisans and traders who have taken part in the craft fair, the hundreds of Morris sides and folk dancers who have taken part, the guest artists, and all the singers and musicians as well as everyone who has attended the festival.
Some of our other activities will continue unchanged. There are no plans to stop publishing Around Kent Folk magazine and the monthly free Tenterden Folk Sessions will continue unchanged. We may even promote some much smaller one off events around the town such as barn dances, ceilidhs, or folk music concerts.
Alan Castle, Margaret White and Richard Cartwright
Trustees of Tenterden Folk Day Trust / Tenterden Folk Festival
The Background
The first “Tenterden Folk Day” took place on Saturday 2nd October 1993 and, according to the programme, there were 15 billed guests, 13 Morris sides and 18 events. The guests included some familiar names such as Band of Two,
Tenterden Folk Day Trust was formed in 1994 and registered as a charity with Alan and Dave as the first Trustees, together with Cllr John Link and Jerry Smith who was the landlord of the Eight Bells. The Bells was also the home of Tenterden Folk Club. Anne Thomas became a Trustee the following year as did then Cllr Mike Levy. The second folk day in 1994 actually started on Friday evening with a Friday Folk Club upstairs in the Eight Bells with John Kirkpatrick topping the bill. The programme guest list includes such stalwarts as Bob & Kathy Drage, Bo Foakes, Bob Kenward, Vic and Tina Smith (with The Sussex Pistols) and many more. The festival had already started to develop and in 1995 there were nearly 30 guests listed including Martyn Wyndham Read and the late Johnny Collins and a Friday evening sing-a-round was added. By now we were also holding the Eight Bells folk club twice a month and also running the educational project in local schools which continues today.
The next big change was in 1998 when the event was re-branded “Tenterden Folk Festival” and for the first time a few events were added on the Sunday. The guest list was headed by Martin Carthy who headlined a sellout concert in the Eight Bells. The barn dance band that year was The Cock and Bull Band, one of the best known bands on the festival circuit. We continued our policy of including some of the best traditional English singers on the guest list in 1999 when we booked both The Copper Family and Ian Campbell.
The festival has continued to thrive, develop and grow but the Trust has always remained true to its original charitable objectives. To preserve and advance public education and appreciation of traditional and contemporary folk music, song, dance and other related traditions, crafts and folk arts as a part of the living heritage.
www.tenterdenfolkfestival.org.uk
info@tenterdenfolkfestival.org.uk
Photos of previous Tenterden Folk Festival are available in the Tenterden Folk Festival photo gallery.
Posted 8th October 2024
Tenterden Folk Festival: promoting folk song, music, dance, crafts and traditions: Registered charity No 1038663
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