What a brilliant turnout at Goggs Mill yesterday, for Kick Start Fakenham’s Great Duck Race. The guys did some absolutely sterling work, with extra promotion coming via Radio Norfolk’s Sunday morning ‘Treasure Quest’ show (one of their clues was hidden at the site) and an interview with Kick Start’s Mark live on air just before the race.

Kick Start raised £456, with prizes totalling £175 going to the first, second and third placed ‘duck owners’. Lovely weather, everybody smiling and joining in the spirit of the day and really good attendance. Result!

It won’t be long now. Fakenham Plubfest, Fakenham Fair and the associated carnival procession are happening in August. It’s going to be ‘fun times’ all the way.

What’s your local pub or social club doing for Plubfest? If you can’t see one of the bright orange posters up in the bar, ask the owner/manager about it. If your pub/club hasn’t organised anything yet, it’s time to do just that – ASAP. Deadlines for the local press are looming and if we can’t tell the public what’s happening they won’t turn up!

We’re fast approching July. Fakenham Fair and the associated Pub & Club Festival are at the end of August. Won’t be long now!

I recently created a couple of websites for those two ‘happenings’ - pop along to www.fakenhamfair.co.uk and www.plubfest.co.uk to keep up to speed with what’s being planned.

If you’re a trader who’d like a stall at Fakenham Fair, you’d better book up now – I’ve been reliably informed that the number of booked stalls has already reached last year’s total. The Carnival Procession is being planned as we speak and bookings are being taken for that too. Get in quick if you’re a business or local organization who wants to be in the procession. You’ll find the appropriate entry documents for download on the site.

As for Fakenham Plubfest, we’ve had a pretty good response from the town’s ‘boozers’ – there are just two or three pubs who haven’t quite made up their minds yet, and just one social club which is yet to respond – I’d class that as a bit of a success. We have the Prize Draw all but sorted – the ticksheets are on the website to download, the venues’ ink and stamps are ready to go and some nice prizes have already been donated. Almost good to go!

Publicise your community events on the town website!

Fakenham has certainly ‘picked up’ recently as far as town events go. The recent ‘Royal Wedding  After Party’ in the town centre is a prime example. As I attend Kick Start Fakenham meetings, I can also see that there are more events being planned for later in the year and I’m sure it does add to the town’s community spirit (as was intended when Kick Start was formed).

There’s the Fakenham Fair in the Millenium Park on 27th August. That’ll be preceded by a carnival procession headed by the town’s ‘Local Hero’ and comprising both vehicles and walkers. Also during the week before the Fair, Fakenham’s pubs and clubs will be participating in ‘Fakenham Plubfest‘, where many of our local hostelries will be organising an event of their own on one or more days.  There’s also a community Tidy-up being mooted, a duck race, a photo competition and more besides.

There’s a lot going on and lots of planning to do, so if you or your organisation want to get involved, whether it’s being in the carnival procession,  voting for our Local Hero, having a stall at Fakenham Fair, or sorting out an event for your pub or club in the Festival, now’s the time to contact the people concerned to let them know.

Kick Start’s not the only entity arranging town events, of course. If you’re doing something for the community, please let me know so that it can be publicised on the town website. It doesn’t cost anything, it’s gratis and what’s more it’s utterly and totally free (plus, did I mention that there are no costs involved?).

Kick Start Fakenham are organizing a Pub & Club Festival this summer. It’s called ‘Fakenham Plubfest’  and will feature a wide range of events in the town’s pubs and clubs, held mainly during the week leading up to Fakenham Fair on 27th August. The idea came about after talking about having a beer frstival. We decided that a pub and club festival would be better for the town’s businesses and could be a lot of fun too!

I had the onerous task of visiting lots of the town’s hostelries last night (although not a drop of alcohol passed my lips) with Sean and Mark, the other two Kick Starters who are arranging the festival with me.  I must say, we had a really great response from the pub & club people we spoke to and it seems like all the ones we’ve contacted so far have been keen to get involved in some way or another. More than one reponse we got was, ‘It’s about time Fakenham did something like this’!

The idea is to get each establishment to arrange an evening event some time during that week. They can do anything they want – ‘do what you do best’  is the phrase we’ve been using. They’ve come up with some brilliant ideas too. So far we’ve heard they’d like to plan a karaoke, a quiz, a barbecue, a Tex-Mex night, a rock band gig, music acts and a Fakenham’s Got Talent evening. If those ideas come off, it sure looks like the town will be a fun place to go for a night out that week!

I’ll be posting more about the festival as plans progress. If you want to see the latest info, have a look at Fakenham Plubfest’s Facebook page.

It’s time, I decided. Remember that new Fakenham website I was telling you about? The new one that’s a central point of info for all things Fakenham. I’ve switched the switch. Pulled the lever that makes it available. Dropped a coin in the virtual meter. You can have a look now!

Let me know what you think. I’m after suggestions for the content and I’m hoping you’ll let  me know if you find any incorrect information or if things go all pear-shaped while you’re surfing it.

There are a few bits that don’t work yet, such as the news items from the Town Council and Kick Start Fakenham websites (they’re not launched yet). There are some sparsely-populated sections too, like the Local Link Directory (do you run a non-commercial Fakenham area website? Get your site linked now!). On the whole though, it’s just about there – albeit a work in progress. Automatic links to Facebook and Twitter, the works!

Have a ‘butcher’s hook’ and tell me how you get on

Hunt for hero in carnival comeback – News – Eastern Daily Press

Here’s the first story I’ve seen in the local media about this year’s Fakenham Carnival, which Kick Start Fakenham are planning. A Carnival procession will be back, for the first time in ages. There’s also a ‘heroes’ theme to proceedings, with no carnival queen but a local hero chosen by the community who will lead the procession.

Read more about in in the EDP and if you know somebody who’s a bit of a local hero, put their name forward!

I attended a Kick Start Fakenham meeting last night – the first one I’ve been to for ages. The meetings are much more formal than they used to be, with a definite agenda and structure to them. Although the informal nature of earlier meetings was friendly and comfortable, I think it has improved with this change – they covered a lot of issues in an hour and a half!

There’s a fair bit going on at Kick Start. Carnival plans, fundraising ideas, festivals, commemorative areas being planned for the community and a lot more besides. They’re actively representing themselves on other town agencies too – the Area Partnership, Town Council and Chamber of Trade will all have Kick Start representatives from now on. It’s all coming together nicely.

Hopefully, I’ll be helping them to get a website up and running soon – they’ll then be branching out from their Facebook page so that information about what they’re doing for the town is more widely available. That’s why I was there last night.

Online information: That’s another area which will hopefully become more ‘joined up’ in Fakenham in the near future too. Watch this space!

Fakenham has started to address some of its issues now, I think. People are beginning to focus on improving our town and the first signs of coordination between the local organisations involved is becoming apparent.

Kick Start Fakenham have made their presence felt with an impressive Fakenham Fair, with the aid of the Fakenham Area Partnership. They’ve proven that they mean business and can organise an event on that scale - which bodes well for an even bigger community event or maybe even a full-scale carnival next year.

But what next? The town needs to progress further and we need to consider what direction to take.  Comments on an earlier post by a visitor to our town highlighted some of the negative aspects he’d seen. The many replies to his comments seemed to culminate in the opinion that although it was easy to spot and point out problems it was difficult to find a way to address them.

So do you have any ideas? What would you like to see the various organisations in Fakenham concentrate their efforts on? Are they doing anything wrong or completely missing a trick somewhere?  There’s the Town Council, The Area Partnership, The Parish Church, the Kick Start group and the Chamber of Trade – all trying to do stuff for the town we love. Give them some feedback!

Today’s Fakenham Fair was well attended and the event was great fun. Lots of stalls, bouncy castles, local organisations and demonstrations – and the weather was very kind too!

Fantastic work by Kick Start and the Fakenham Area Partnership – well done, guys. Here’s to a successful full-blown Fakenham Carnival in 2011!!!