Delays in setting off, motorway closures and annoyingly slow moving horse-trailers on country roads, mean Karen, Rob and I scrape into the Greenbelt Ops meeting in Stathern a few minutes late.
That not withstanding, the day goes extremely well and we seem to make a lot of progress. Key decisions get made, important information disseminated and actions assigned.
Underlying all this is the delight of spending time with some of my favourite people on the planet. Consequently, whilst the meetings can get pretty intensive, but they never ‘quite’ feel like work.
It’s an exciting time to be involved with the festival; after years of crisis management and tighter than tight budgetary controls the news that we’re within a hair’s whisker of being truly back in the black is a fantastic vindication of everyone who dedicated themselves to saving this amazing festival.
It’s good to be able to talk about looking at responsibly building up reserves to avoid a repeat of the problems and it’s even better to be able to couple that with a new sense of future, a sense of truly moving beyond ‘fire-fighting’ and into proactive planning.
Time to talk about where we take things, how we improve the festival, how we can better look after our volunteers and so forth.
I’m constantly amazed by how much people put into the festival and this has never been truer than in the past half decade, when sheer determination and personal sacrifice have kept the festival from going under. It feels like we weathered the storm together, against all odds, and are now emerging at last into the sunshine – tighter than ever.
Exciting times.
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