PRESS RELEASE

WHALLEY PICKWICK NIGHT – EVENT PLAN UPDATE

Released: [24.09.18]

‘THE WHALLEY PICKWICK COMMITTEE ARE TO POSTPONE THIS YEAR'S PLANNED EVENT BUT ANNOUNCE SOME EXCITING NEWS FOR THE EVENTS FUTURE’

Following a recent meeting by this year’s Whalley Pickwick Committee, hard decisions have had to be taken regards this year’s event.

The decision has been made postpone the current plans to hold Whalley Pickwick Night in 2018.

The members of the volunteer Pickwick committee held a public meeting in April to look at the sustainability of the event. Discussions were made to look at new ideas to keep the event relevant to its changing community. A change of event format was desired to preserve the voluntary run event for the longer term.

During this summer the feedback from April’s meeting has been discussed by a new elected committee and stakeholders involved with the event. A number of major changes have been agreed upon to reshape the annual seasonal celebrations. After a lot of soul-searching, it has been decided that the current planned date for the event (Thursday 6th December) does not allow a timescale to implement the required needs of these changes.

The current team of 10 strong volunteers who form the Whalley Pickwick Committee have given careful consideration to look at ways of fitting a new concept into the old event infrastructure. As well as a lack of resources to implement these new plans, there is a significant time constraint therefore it has been decided to delay the event until later in 2019. This additional time would help the committee plan something that hopefully is special and memorable whilst raising the standard of organising the long-standing community event. We are disappointed we will not be holding an event in its 30th year, but when the new Whalley Pickwick is unveiled to the public, we hope we have found a formula that can keep the event running for another future years.

The committee feels the decision made is a very positive one. The feedback from our committee members and stakeholders are as follows:

· A desire to encourage a coordinated and collaborative community approach to planning and running the event.

· To work closely with other local organisations, groups and businesses to offer more variety and participation by the community.

· To keep the event financially viable, by looking to extend the length of the time of the event. With a longer event duration, a change of date would be required that would be inclusive of business trading hours.

· To provide more time for planning to assure the best event can be offered to the public in a safe and effective manner.

A plan to arrange an event in the New Year is being considered. The aim to bring together the various event stakeholders (that includes the various community groups, organisations and businesses) together for a constructive fun evening, rather than holding a formal style meeting. The structure of the future Whalley Pickwick event will be informally discussed and other ideas explored. A date and venue for this will be confirmed in due course. The plan is to inject some fun and passion back to the event planning and get more independent involvement from as many of the local community groups and businesses as possible.

The event organisers are committed to secure the future of the Whalley Pickwick Event and we ask everyone for their understanding and support for the hard decisions that have been made.

Any correspondence for those who wish to pass on their comments of support, ideas and feedback about the future of the event, can be emailed to info@whalleypickwick.org.uk for the attention of the committee.