Miners in Kent. Festival For Miners in Deal, Kent 2010

The Kent Miners Statue has moved. Please Visit Our other Web Site at www.movetheminer.org

Thanks to all you visitors who came to our Festival and enjoyed yourselves. Below is the prize draw numbers. Winners please email or phone me? Lists will be posted in the KM Messenger papers and at Fowlmead Visitor Centre. Good Luck

Just a reminder in case you did not buy a Deal Mercury or any other KM Group Newspaper and missed out on their superb 16 page pullout. This years Festival is over two days of the Bank Holiday weekend, 29th & 30th August 2010, opening times are 10am till 5pm both days. There will be fun for all the family with some Mining and other exhibitions and health and wellbeing, thrown in as well.

Hello, it’s Tuesday, with 4 days to go till the Festival. More problems solved today. This time, it is Thomsett’s Coaches that have come to our rescue. I can at last inform you that free buses will run our visitors to the Festival on Sunday and Monday. For Bus Timetables for both days follow link on the left.

I had to visit Mr Stephen Solley today. He, along with his family, are our local ice-cream specialists and will be supplying our visitors with their Real Dairy Ice-Cream made from full fat milk and cream from Channel Island cows. He had already heard of our struggle to fund this years Festival and when he heard that our Sunday Vintage bus from our Villages had been cancelled, he came to our rescue and has sponsored a coach to make sure visitors from our villages will be able to get to our festival on Sunday. This is what community life is all about and this is what we want to preserve and prolong in our little corner of Kent and if we can spread some of this spirit around as well, then no matter what else is going on around us, this spirit will give us all a lift.

Bad news I am afraid, no Vintage buses will run on the Sunday 29^th August due to insurance problems that cannot be overcome, even with money, there’s a novelty.

I must apologise to our visitors from Deal and our Villages, we are desperately trying to solve this problem but as Sunday was always a youth and sporty type day, then I hope you will still come along and enjoy yourselves.

Thanks also to Oatmor Harris Excavations Ltd, Mark Jones and his team, they have been preparing the site and the Statue ready for the big move.

Thanks to everyone who have helped make this move possible.

Nearly at the end of the Tunnel.

Oatmor Harris are a local construction firm with wide ranging expertise in all aspects of the building trade. They are well established and well respected in the construction industry.

Visit http://www.oatmor-harris.co.uk/

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We had a KMF meeting today at Fowlmead, plenty of kids playing in the adventure park, looks like its going to be a success.

Got more things planned for Festival but one thing that stands out, is our lack of funding. We want to keep this festival free but to achieve that ambition we need some investors. Any amount big or small would be greatly appreciated and rewarded. We are offering free advertising on our website which is getting thousands of hits. Any investor would be included in our programme and possibly in all media involving the festival, maybe even on TV, BBC and others will be following the festival again this year.

So come on all you shrewd business people, get in at the start of an event that will grow and grow, don’t miss this opportunity!!!!!!!!

Another great addition to the Festival confirmed today that they will be entertaining you all on the Sunday. We saw them at Aylesham Fayre and they were great. Take a look for your selves at:- http://www.masqueradeperformers.co.uk/

Well, I'm not going to get on here everyday that’s for sure. So far this week I have been working on moving the statue and applying for funds for both projects from Bridging the Gap.

Monday was spent filling in forms and waiting for Solicitors to contact me regarding the Lease for the statue site. No contact, so a string of calls from me to both sets of solicitors ended with me finally getting lease emailed to me. The idea was to save time, with me printing the lease from my email. No such luck, the lease contains several plans, one of which was about 4 ft long when unfolded, so I still had to wait for hard copy to be delivered to our solicitor in Dover. That led to my first trip to Dover and back. Tuesday had me running to Betteshanger to get Peter Holden to sign the lease, then over to Dover for my second trip, first to Whitfield to hand in and go through the BtG funding forms with Carol Reeves, she has been really helpful and our thanks go out to her. Then onto our solicitors again to hand over signed lease. No sooner had I got home our solicitor phoned asking where was the cheque for lease, which he forgot to inform me about. So today I have been back over to Peter’s to collect cheque and then back over to Dover again dropping my wife off at tai-chi on the way.

Then at 2pm I had a meeting with Mr Pollard from Dover District Council for him to approve the new site and some of the paperwork involved in moving the statue, insurances, risk assessments etc. At this time we are still waiting for Dover Harbour crane risk assessment, to be drawn up by Mark Punton, crane supervisor. Nearly but not quite there yet.

The new Adventure Playground was officially opened by Keiron Gaffney tonight ,Wednesday, at Fowlmead Country Park. I really hope that it is very popular and is used a lot.

Mark Killmurray is mainly responsible for this venture and has worked hard to create a great park for our local communities to visit and take part in many activities. Sadly Mark is leaving the park shortly, to take up teaching again and we would like to wish him good luck in his new job.

I met up with Ash, James and the Dubcycle Team, on Friday and I can tell you we are well pleased that they are joining us again this year.

Sorry it has been a while, I have been very busy trying to get the Statue moved and to organize this years festival, both are very time consuming and I am afraid I have let the website slip.

I don’t want to tell you everything that is going on at this year’s event because I think that will spoil it for you but I thought you might be interested in finding out how a festival of this size is put together. I am going to try and give you a daily report of what we are all up to behind the scenes.

Jimmy has many contacts, not just from the mining world but from his business expertise as well and of course those that know Jim will be aware of his sporting ties. Jim is busy rounding up Tug-O-War ropes at the moment with the hope of getting junior and senior competitions going at the festival.

We want a youth competition on the Sunday with schools and groups to get teams together to compete for a trophy.

On the Monday we want adult teams from pubs or clubs or anywhere else to take part, also for a trophy.

We want someone to organise these Tug-O-War events, so come on, step up and contact me or Jim.

The vintage bus (fotek) lads are busy putting together bus timetables for both days, bring in people from our town’s and villages is one of the most important part of this event. We will distribute these timetables as soon as they are available and I will add them to this site as well.

John Tricky and his Regatta team are organizing a Kent Coal Community Queen Contest this year, effectively reviving one of our oldest traditions. This will be held on the Monday, for more info on this please contact Andrew on Andrew.Trollope@POferries.com.

Following last years successful community event, our committee, due to public demand, are organising this years Kent Miners festival to run over two days, on the Bank Holiday Weekend, 29^th/30^th August 2010.


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