First Festival Fund Raising Ball

Designed celebrate and mark Queen Elizabeth II’s becoming the nation’s longest reigning Monarch, the details of our Royal Ball were as follows:

Festival Royal Ball

Reception @ 7pm for Dinner @ 7.30pm. Friday 11th September 2015

Cabaret, Dancing, Grand Auction

Wyrebank Banqueting Suite, The Moorings, Garstang, PR3 1PG

Dress: Black Tie Dancing until Midnight

Our village Festival, established well over 150 years ago, broke new ground in 2012 when, to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee it twinned with a similar, though much larger event in Nova Scotia, Canada: The Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival (see Twinning). The twinning was completed in Nova Scotia in 2013 and links and collaborations were quickly established. We were delighted that Rotary District Governor 2014-2015, Stella Roy from Halifax, Nova Scotia was able to be with us following a visit to a joint project with Longridge and North Preston Rotary at St Catherine’s Hospice, which has arisen out of the twinning.

Also celebrating with us were Dr Ian Darrington MBE from Wigan and for 30 years Director of the Wigan International Jazz Festival. Ian’s protégée and emerging singer/songwriter AJ Brown recently performed at Stella’s District Rotary Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, also as a consequence of the twinning, before embarking on a Summer of engagements with Sir Tom Jones, Elaine Paige and Marti Pellow. Dr Darrington and his wife, my husband and Festival Chairman David Butters and I accompanied AJ to Nova Scotia in the Spring of 2015.

Special Guests also included Freeman of the City of Preston Ken Hudson with his wife, Sue who are long time dedicated supporters of our Festival; and our Festival Queens Miss Melissa Crawley (2015) and Miss Chloe Collins (2012), both of whom travelled with us in 2013 for the twinning.

The sell out event raised £1700 and was greatly enjoyed by all. Check out the details of the 2016 event now.