This weekend’s Beverley Food Festival (2nd October 2011) is one of the biggest events of its kind in the north of England and will host stalls from producers from all over the region – and one from as far away as our twin-town Lemgo in Germany. Chefs from local Beverley restaurants will be putting on cooking demonstrations throughout the day, and amongst other attractions, BBC Look North’s Peter Levy will be opening the event in the morning. The Food Festival is an asset to the town and, in my opinion, one of the best things the town council has to offer. If you haven’t been before make sure you get to the town centre this Sunday.
The Beverley Food Festival would not take place without the work (heroics) of the Beverley Town Council staff, and especially our Clerk Helen Watson, to whom we are indebted for making the event happen. Thanks also go to councillors who have helped out, such as the Mayor of Beverley Peter Astell, and also councillor Elaine Aird. Should you want to, you will be able to see us on the day – hopefully with better weather than last year!
In other news, I recently visited Goole Town Council to learn about how they function in the community. Town councils do not replace East Riding of Yorkshire Council (ERYC). Rather they supplement ERYC, the district council, at a local level. Town and district councils also provide different services. Here in Beverley ERYC is very much the bigger fish. Beverley Town Council funds various local services such as CCTV, detached youth workers and events. However in Goole the Town Council runs parks, markets and local amenities, as well as working with charities and social enterprises. They even have a theatre (which doubles-up as a fully functioning cinema) where both national and community groups put on shows, and tickets are heavily subsidised to the local community for all to come and enjoy the local culture.
In Beverley we have other outlets for the same facilities – minus the cinema, unfortunately. Community groups are always welcome to approach the town council to work together on projects, however there are plenty of high-functioning groups who do not need us, and provide excellent services, fund raisers and events – the Beverley Lions’ Westwood bonfire on Guy Fawkes Night, for example.
It was great to learn of other ways of doing things, or of how we could work with community groups to do or try new things in Beverley. I hope to use the experience to be able to offer more to local groups who want to work with us.
The future is very much a blank canvass.
Cllr. Stuart Pearce
Beverley Town Council
I for one will always be grateful to former Councillor and Mayor Matt Snowden without whom there would never have been a Food Festival.
I suppose it’s out of sight, out of mind, since he decided not to stand at the last election his contributions seem to have been ignored.
How fickle are we?
David
You may or may not know (but I think you probably do) that I was not involved with the town council before the election, so my experience of the food festival has been as described above.
However, I am very happy to thank Matt Snowden for what is now his legacy as a town councillor/mayor. Arguably I should have said so above. I hope to see him there on Sunday.
“Fickle” is an interesting choice of word.
Stuart
Fickle is an interesting choice of word indeed and so are Balderdash and Piffle.
Piffle is my favourite.
If I didn’t know better I’d think I was being trolled by Brian Pearson! Obviously rubbing off…
On a serious note, I think we can agree that the Food Festival was a success?
I had a good time – however was really not happy about being charge £5.50 for a bacon (2 rashers) and sausage (1 sausage) sandwich though!
At least a good chunk of it went to charity, if that’s any consolation!
No it does not make me feel any better about it at all Stuart. Charity is not an excuse to overcharge for a single sausage in a roll, it did taste nice though.
Ha, well, I’d take that up with 2Chefs
I think the organisors of the event should consider my feedback and take on board my comments for next year. 😉
Will see what can be done. However its a bit beyond the remit of Beverley Town Council to interfere with market forces!