Spring Fair '14

It was my fifth Swanvale Halt Church Spring Fair at the start of the month. This year the new committee has really got its teeth into the organisation of the Fair and was rewarded with the first consistently bright and sunny day for the event for some years. Last year I sat disconsolately in the Town Council's hall looking out at torrential rain pouring down on the field outside, and on the church stalls, vowing to myself that it would be the last; then my resolve was dissolved by conversations with ordinary people over the rest of the day, telling me how much they valued the Fair and enjoyed it. Oh all right, I thought, we'll do it again, then.

This year we'd bought a lot of our own kit (urns and a barbeque) so we didn't have the stress of hiring and transporting someone else's, and bright, attractive signage to replace the hand-painted signs which already looked old-fashioned in 1983 when they were first made. It makes the whole thing feel more fun and worthwhile, although it's still a colossal amount of hard work on the part of a lot of people, and rather more people than was the case a couple of years ago.

From somewhere we found the energy to have a 'wash-up' meeting this week and when I did the minutes I found we'd listed over forty separate ideas and points for improvement. I suppose that's enthusiasm, if nothing else!