This page is reserved for members of the organising team of the Middlewich Folk & Boat Festival 2022 to explain just went wrong with the Festival and what steps were taken to avoid the eventual disastrous outcome.
You can email us on Middlewichdiary@aol.com.
We'll publish whatever you send to us, completely enedited, unexpurgated and in full. -Ed
To explain the situation a little more fully, here's a comment I made on the Middlewich Residents' Association FB Group in response to a comment by Cllr Mary Monroe:
I'm always very keen to place the blame for the 2022 Folk & Boat Festival Disaster fairly and squarely where it belongs; with the then town council and the 'contractors' it employed. People tell me that when I bring this up I am 'not being very nice'. Well I don't consider that it was 'very nice' for a team of 'organisers' to wreck our town's premier annual event and lose £100,000 plus on the event, causing the council to escape going into special measures by the skin of its teeth. Although an enquiry was instigated and established exactly how this money was lost and the Festival trashed, we have yet to hear a single word of explanation, apology or contrition from any of the people involved. The current organisers have taken the Festival back to its community roots and have vowed that never again will the Festival have to rely on a council which has no business trying to organise such an event. The Folk & Boat Festival is now once again self-supporting, though it welcomes help from all quarters. FAB makes such a lot of money for local businesses and provides such great entertainment for visitors and residents alike, that it would be strange indeed if those who want the best for the town didn't help it survive. And while I'm here, if anyone thinks I'm being unduly harsh about all this, I can remind everyone that there's a permanent offer to anyone and everyone involved with running the 2022 FAB Festival to tell us what happened and explain why we shouldn't feel the way we do. I have a page on the Middlewich Diary standing by to publish anything that those organisers want to tell Middlewich people. I promise not to alter a word. You can call me all the names under the sun. I'll still publish it. If you can convince me, and the people of Middlewich, that we've got it all wrong, and that things didn't happen the way we think they did, then I for one will be ready to humbly apologise and wear sackcloth and ashes for the rest of my days. I've been accused of 'telling lies' - something I try not to do, so it stands to reason that I've got things wrong somewhere. Please help me tell the real truth, so that I can let everyone know what really happened.
Dave Roberts.
