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West Leeds Festival’s plea for volunteers
A POPULAR Leeds festival is sending out an urgent call for volunteers after a funding cut meant organisers can no longer afford to publicise it.
The annual I Love West Leeds festival is now in its seventh year and returns in July with a packed menu of summer events for all the family and right across the region.
The YEP reported last week that a funding boost of £38,000 would help another west Leeds icon – Bramley Baths – continue with longer opening hours for another six months, but other local projects would have their council grants slashed as a result.
Among those was the I Love West Leeds Festival, which saw its share of money from the inner west Leeds area committee slashed from £25,000 to £18,000 for 2011.
Now festival director Jane Earnshaw is sending out a call to arms to people across west Leeds to help deliver leaflets to houses in their neighbourhoods.
“Funds are tighter this year which means we will not be able to pay Royal Mail to deliver our brochures, so we will need to do it ourselves,” she said.
“We want an army of volunteers to help get the brochures out, people in west Leeds who will deliver in their streets and the streets around them, even if they can just give an hour or so.”
The overall budget for the inner west Leeds area - £137,000 for 2011/12- is already down 12 per cent on last year in line with widespread cuts.
The cash for Bramley Baths, which will fund longer opening for six months from September, means most other local projects will have their funding slashed by 19.3 per cent. For the festival, the cut was almost a third and potentially fatal to its ambitions.
The I Love West Leeds festival attracts thousands every year to a huge range of quirky and fun activities which are put on over three weeks in July.
Previous weird and wonderful highlights have included a ‘knitting’ theme - including a knitted garden shed with knitted tools and accessories.
And In 2008, when the theme was ‘pants’, schools were sent hundreds of pairs of brand-new pristine white Y-fronts and pupils asked to decorate them in the most creative and fun way possible.
This year’s events take place between July 1 and 24, with the main event, the Big Free Festival Day, taking place on Sunday, July 3 at Bramley Falls Park.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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