From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Thu Jan 27 12:45:41 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2022 12:45:41 +0000 Subject: [MayHeydays] May Heydays 2022 Message-ID: Dear Supporters May Heydays News We thank you once again for your previous support for EIFF and your interest in our fledgling moved to Evesham; and hope that 2022 finds you in good health - and waiting for May Heydays to finally start! Programme: Our Director, Mecki, has had the artists lined up for some time but the committee took the decision to wait until January before reviewing things and seeing what sort of programme could be devised. The committee is now out of hibernation and the plans for the 2022 festival are taking shape. Envisaging a reduced number of attendees compared to 2020, we are, initially, setting up a three-tier festival: two American/English events plus one International from Friday evening until Monday lunchtime, followed by our joint Monday afternoon dance. Check things out on: https://mayheydays.org.uk/ See the programme page for the latest info and the Venue page for pictures of the 3 planned dance halls. If we get more bookings than would comfortably fit into 3 halls, we will extend the programme to the 4th hall. Tickets: In view of the late start, we have decided to keep the ticketing simpler this year, with the Friday - Monday full weekend ticket price set at £97 and £48 for concessions (as planned for the shorter event of Friday – Sunday back in 2020). Camping will be held at its same rate of £20. Booking forms will be on the Tickets page in time to start new sales on February 1st. Day and evening tickets will be available later, at prices of £48 (£24 concessions) for All Day and £14 (£7) for Evening tickets. Concerning Covid: things are still fluid but it does look hopeful that the situation will have improved come May. Our folk dancing activity is a particular case, involving, as it does, touching, close contact, meeting lots of partners, plus, often, laughter and noise – all in an indoor setting. We therefore think that people should ideally be triple vaccinated and take a lateral flow test as a sensible precaution prior to coming to Evesham – plus of course not to come if having any flu/cold-like symptoms. We would hope that all our committed attendees are prepared to follow the applicable guidelines at the time, whether those dictated by government or plain common sense. The next 3 months: Keep an eye on the website in the lead up to our event to stay abreast of plans and changes. We will be providing site plans to help in finding your way around the new Venue and updating info on Where to Stay (awaiting updated information from Evesham T.I.C.), on the planned menus (see Food), an updated train timetable (see FAQ) plus any other useful information. Finally: be assured one and all, it is our intention to run a festival unless circumstances contrive to stop us doing so. In the event of not being able to go ahead, the committee has agreed that we will refund all ticket sums held at that point and re-set for 2023. Festival Committee, January 2020 From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Sat Mar 19 10:56:13 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2022 10:56:13 +0000 Subject: [MayHeydays] May Heydays update Message-ID: Dear Festival Supporters, We are pleased to be able to report that the preparations for May Heydays 2022 are progressing well. Programme Updates: The programme is quite stable (though I wouldn't print it out just yet!). We have recently added the Jane Austen Dancers from Bath; they will do a workshop and a couple of performances on Sunday as well as joining in some of the dance sessions with the rest of us. Further events have been added for your delectation: • Mike Courthold will run two American workshops • John Sweeney is offering a waltz workshop on Sunday • James Eisner is on our books to do a couple of singing workshops • Daisy Black will weave a story or two…… • Jenny Norris is leading French/Breton sessions with Confluence • Work is in progress to set up some music sessions, so do bring along your musical instruments! If you are interested in calling, we are considering putting on a calling workshop - in addition to the Callers' Round event to be led by Brian Stanton. Let me know asap if you would like to take part, and we’ll go ahead with this! It will be in a hall with a PA system available for recorded music (bring your own recordings) and an experienced caller on hand. If you would be happy to volunteer as a guinea-pig dancer, watch out for the workshop and just turn up! Meanwhile, we’ve had good discussions with the caterers and will soon be able to add full details of the menus and the meal voucher system to the website. We will be encouraging you to buy vouchers in advance to reduce queuing at meal times. A small set-back for us was to learn that work is underway at the school to upgrade, amongst other things, building names and room numbers – making some of the site maps & plans already drawn up redundant. Ah well, something else for Monty to ably sort out………… Can I remind our supporters with roll-over tickets to let us know as soon as they can of their intentions this year. And to our wider group of supporters, please check out the programme on the website, and see if this new/old venture of ours is enough to persuade you that the time is coming to dip your toes back into the dancing arena – and May Heydays 2022 is the place to do it! Day tickets are also now on sale! May I end with a plea for a photographer to step forward? We have lost our planned volunteer and would really like someone to capture our first May Heydays for posterity. That in itself should be a sufficient incentive but there is also a free weekend ticket up for grabs, free camping and long lasting gratitude and relief! Keep safe and we hope to see as many of you as possible at Evesham. Mecki Director From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Fri May 20 17:21:17 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Fri, 20 May 2022 17:21:17 +0100 Subject: [MayHeydays] May Heydays circulation list Message-ID: Hi, Fellow Folkdancers Now that the dust has settled on our first - and successful! - May Heydays folkdance festival in Evesham, I am looking at updating our email circulation list of ongoing supporters. Many of the names on our list were inherited from the Eastbourne International Folkdance Festival and may not be known personally to Mecki and me as MHD directors. Or, I may have lost the link between your email and name in the early days of taking over the festival. So, as a start, I am sending this note to those emails on the list for which I have no first, second or full name. If you wish to stay on our list, would you please reply with this info? If I do not hear from you by, say, the end of June, I will assume you no longer wish to be informed about our future plans and will take you off the list, so as not to trouble you with further circulations. Thanks Regards Monty Crook May Heydays Ticketing From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Sat Oct 1 14:54:31 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Sat, 01 Oct 2022 14:54:31 +0100 Subject: [MayHeydays] May Heydays 2023 - ticket sales and updates Message-ID: Dear Supporters May Heydays, 28th April - 1st May 2023 The May Heydays team is pleased to announce that Early-bird tickets for 2023 are now on sale. Prices are £97 per person for a weekend ticket, with £20pp for camping. Under 18s’ and fulltime students’ tickets are £48 with camping at £10. Stewards’ tickets are £48 (including camping). These prices are valid until 31st January; subsequent prices are shown on the website. A booking form is attached and will also be available from the website. The latest draft of the programme is now up, but remember this may be subject to changes, so keep an eye on it. The 2023 dance-writing competition is open (this year for Contras) and full details are at: https://mayheydays.org.uk/rules23.html We have also updated other website pages, for example with respect to local Evesham info on camping, other accommodation, eateries etc, as provided by the Tourist Information office. We have had discussion with the school about feedback from this year’s event and they have already or will be making some improvements based on your suggestions. These include a higher field security-fence, increased cleaning staff levels, better sound partitions in some halls and improved gate security/lighting. Leaving times for campers staying over until the Tuesday morning have been revised to avoid any conflict with staff work needs and children arriving for the normal school day. We will discuss catering aspects with the head caterer in January and will advise later on the menu options. Thank you for your continuing support for May Heydays and we hope to see you over next year's May bank holiday weekend. Keep well and best wishes The May Heydays Team -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2023 May Heydays Early-Bird booking.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 21218 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Sun Oct 2 12:11:03 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2022 12:11:03 +0100 Subject: [MayHeydays] May Heydays 2023 - ticket sales and updates Message-ID: (The problem with mothballing MHD matters for 5 months is remembering what state things were left in and where. That explains why only about 20 on our supporters list got this email yesterday and the other 300 plus did not. This mail remedies that and gives the lucky 20 another chance to read the info....) Dear Supporters May Heydays, 28th April - 1st May 2023 The May Heydays team is pleased to announce that Early-bird tickets for 2023 are now on sale. Prices are £97 per person for a weekend ticket, with £20pp for camping. Under 18s’ and fulltime students’ tickets are £48 with camping at £10. Stewards’ tickets are £48 (including camping). These prices are valid until 31st January; subsequent prices are shown on the website. A booking form is attached and will also be available from the website. The latest draft of the programme is now up, but remember this may be subject to changes, so keep an eye on it. The 2023 dance-writing competition is open (this year for Contras) and full details are at: https://mayheydays.org.uk/rules23.html We have also updated other website pages, for example with respect to local Evesham info on camping, other accommodation, eateries etc, as provided by the Tourist Information office. We have had discussion with the school about feedback from this year’s event and they have already or will be making some improvements based on your suggestions. These include a higher field security-fence, increased cleaning staff levels, better sound partitions in some halls and improved gate security/lighting. Leaving times for campers staying over until the Tuesday morning have been revised to avoid any conflict with staff work needs and children arriving for the normal school day. We will discuss catering aspects with the head caterer in January and will advise later on the menu options. Thank you for your continuing support for May Heydays and we hope to see you over next year's May bank holiday weekend. Keep well and best wishes Monty, for The May Heydays Team PS: if you wish to unsubscribe from this list do let me know. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: 2023 May Heydays Early-Bird booking.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 21218 bytes Desc: not available URL: From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Wed Oct 12 18:38:09 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Wed, 12 Oct 2022 18:38:09 +0100 Subject: [MayHeydays] MHD - Keep 1st May 2023 as the Bank Holiday - sign our petition Message-ID: Hello All Oh, no, it looks to be happening again........ I’ve made a petition – will you sign it? Click this link to sign the petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/625155/sponsors/new?token=tVxI5SzWuEXSWyFuGFbb My petition: Keep the May 1st 2023 Bank Holiday on that date and not move it to May 8th Do not take the decision to move the Spring Bank Holiday again for the second time in 3 years. Please consider more fully the negative effect this can have on peoples' long made plans and commitments, whether in leisure activities, manufacturing lead times or other endeavours. In May 2020 the Spring Bank Holiday was moved to May 8th at short notice. This affected many long-planned events, costing money (as in cancelled flights/hotels, advertising costs) and with great inconvenience to organisers. Does parliament not get the effect this had on many Bank Holiday plans, including many traditional festivals with international followings. Anyone wishing to celebrate the King's coronation has the Friday, Saturday and Sunday - why do we need the Monday as well? Click this link to sign the petition: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/625155/sponsors/new?token=tVxI5SzWuEXSWyFuGFbb Monty Crook From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Mon Oct 17 19:05:00 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2022 19:05:00 +0100 Subject: [MayHeydays] "Keep the May 1st 2023 Bank Holiday" - the petition is now published Message-ID: Dear Supporters It appears I jumped the gun in sending out the news of our petition to keep the May 1st Bank Holiday next year. But, it is now published: – “Keep the May 1st 2023 Bank Holiday on that date and not move it to May 8th” Click this link to see the petition (and maybe start sharing it): https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/625155 If you feel like supporting this, many thanks, Regards Monty MHD Ticketing From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Sun Nov 6 13:02:02 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Sun, 06 Nov 2022 13:02:02 +0000 Subject: [MayHeydays] May Heydays update Message-ID: Hi everyone, Today's good news is that the government has announced an *extra* bank holiday next year 'to celebrate the Coronation', rather than moving ours! Hurrah! We're safe for 2023 - so, Friday 28 April to Monday 1 May it is! This year we judged the very enjoyable Playford Style Dance Writing Competition. We had eight entries which fitted nicely into the two-and-a-half hour slot. Disappointingly, no entries for next year's Contra Dance Writing Competition have arrived yet. What are those of you who write dances doing right now? We know you are out there! The rules can be found here: https://mayheydays.org.uk/rules23.html . Anyone can enter! As every year, we will be doing our caller training again. If you are a budding caller who would like to hone your skills and call for a festival audience, please send an email to directorayheydays.org.uk, and your name will be passed on to Katherine and David Wright who will do the training next year. Bookings are going well, but we're getting the impression (from conversations we've had) that we'll have a lot of last-minute bookings at the end of January.... Do have pity on our Bookings volunteer and help spread the load a bit! We will be sending further a reminders! Best wishes, Mecki Testroet, Director Monty Crook, General Dogsbody -- Tel 01308 423 442 From mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk Wed Dec 14 10:36:50 2022 From: mayheydays at lists.phcomp.co.uk (Announcements for May HeyDays) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2022 10:36:50 +0000 Subject: [MayHeydays] Tickets and associated tittle-tattle... Message-ID: Dear Supporters I’m pleased to report that Early-Bird tickets sale are going well, with a quarter of those booking being first timers to Evesham. But, we have over 100 of last year’s happy dancers and a few roll-overs still to re-book, so we are very hopeful that there are a lot more pending attendees out there who are still holding back - maybe until the festive season is over? So, a reminder that the E.B. ticket price of £97 lasts until 31st January, and then weekend tickets will be £115 each. At the same time, a Steward’s half-price ticket goes up from £48 to £57. Also a plea to get your E.B. ticket request in as early as you can and not leave it to the last moment, ‘cos there’s only little old me to process them all! Probably better not to rely on postal applications either, the way things are. By the way, steward applications are a bit low at the moment, so do remember that stewards are very much needed for a successful festival, we will likely need more next year if we take over doing the tea/coffee refreshments from the caterers. Plus, it is a good deal, since the work-load is not excessive…… Cheers, Monty- MHD Ticketing Over to the boss……… We now have a few entries to our Contra Dance Competition, but there is space for more. All the rules are easily to be found on the website. For those who would like to take part in our callers’ training, please let me know soon, so that David and Katherine can start the ball rolling. Those are my reminders for now. More in the New Year. Mecki - and don’t forget to enjoy the festive season!