This blog is going live on Saturday, 11th July, a day when, for once, I’m not working on a Saturday!
The reason for that is that today is the day of Alsager
Music Festival, or to put it more exactly, today is the first day of what has
grown to be a two day festival, held in Alsager’s Milton Park on the Saturday
and in the beer gardens of The Lodge and other pubs in the area on the Sunday
I’ve been an advertising sponsor of this event for many
years now, so many that I can’t remember when I started! My notes suggest that my
first involvement with the event may have been in either 2012 or 2013… I’m not
sure, but I know that I haven’t missed a year since
I also sponsor two beer festivals in the area, the annual Alsager
Beer and Gin Festival, which is held at Alsager Cricket Club in June and raises
funds for local good causes, and the Rode Park And Lawton Cricket Club Beer
Festival, which raises funds for my local cricket team
In addition to that, I also provide physical support to the
Music Festival, in the form of helping the team to set things up in the morning,
and to the Alsager Beer Festival in the form of serving behind the bar on the
Sunday (those who thought I was going to say I supported that one by drinking some
beer at the bar… you’re absolutely right, that’s what I do for the Rode Park
one!)
I don’t particularly NEED the advertising that these events
create and the reason I support them is that they enhance the local community
in which I live
Events like these are important, not only for the money raised
or the opportunities created for people to perform on stage, but they’re good
for the people of the town to get together and enjoy themselves. These events
add something to the experience of living in Alsager and it’s surrounding areas.
We’re very lucky here to have a lot of community events like these and I feel
quite strongly that the more local businesses that chip in to helping to ensure
that they go ahead, the better. For me, it’s about being able to count how many
times the phone rings because of that advert, it’s about contributing to
society
Alsager Round Table is another organisation in the local area
that I support. Again, I can’t remember exactly, but I think my involvement
with them started around 2012 after I made a daft and completely uninformed
comment on Facebook that the bonfire might get cancelled because of a warehouse
fire in Stoke that had destroyed loads of pallets. It was the summertime and
still months before the bonfire, but somebody on my friends list called Rob, who
I’m pleased to be able to call an actual real life friend now, dropped into my
messenger, said that he was organising the bonfire and that instead of unhelpful
comments on the internet, what he really needed was for people to be willing to
get up at 630am to go to the field and build it
I’m not sure he expected this, but I was well up for that!
So that was that really, I put it in my diary and met the guys
at 7am in November to help with unloading broken pallets off lorries and
building something resembling a massive bonfire! It’s really one of the best
things I’ve ever done and something that again, brings the community together
to enjoy a tradition that goes back for generations
The Alsager Music Festival today marks the last of my advertising
sponsorship commitments for 2026, but the work with Alsager Round Table doesn’t
stop. Later this year, we’ll again be hosting our annual bonfire and firework display
at The Plough, then we’ll be putting up the Christmas Lights, then we’ll get a
market set up and host a party to switch the lights on and then of course, it’s
Santa float time!
I feel very lucky to be fit and in good enough health to be
able to do all this and I’d encourage more small business owners to get
involved – drop me a message if you’d like to find out more!
No comments:
Post a Comment