Band Together

05/08/2024

On Saturday 3rd August, our wonderful friend Andy Mapp departed this world.
Despite decades of debilitating health problems, Mappy created & sustained Mappfest, a community-centred Malvern festival which raised thousands of pounds for local charities over the years & was the inspiration for us to create Band Together.
We love you & miss you Mappy.
Thanks for everything x

20/07/2024

Come and support our fabulous friends Hickory's Smokehouse Worcester for their Hickory's Yard Party!

The set up is incredible.. free kids games, facepainting, candyfloss and donations going to Cash for Kids Midlands

And live music hosted by our own Chewie! Featuring Half a Clown Emma Howett Music Ruben Seabright Jay Clark Music

Kicking off now!

17/07/2024

**ANNOUNCEMENT**

We're so sorry this has taken so long! We still haven't had the invoice from the council but they have confirmed how much it will be so that we are able to calculate and confirm the following:

Band Together raised £5,000 for our chosen homelessness charities Maggs Day Centre and the Worcester Street Cafe and so we will shortly be sending them £2,500 each!

It was one heck of an experience and we're very proud of ourselves but we are also incredibly grateful to so many people, without whom we could never have achieved what we have.

Let's start with the incredible musicians who gave up their time and talent for absolutely nothing.. some even performed at multiple venues, donated into the bucket and provided raffle prizes on top of their performances and we just love them for it!
Kaitlyn Elverson Ruben Seabright Jay Clark Music Polly Edwards Music Clare Portman The Hill's Angels Chloe Mogg ME & EM Chewie Kringo Emma Howett Music Cory's Angels Laurel Canyon UK Krescendo Teresa Myatt Nothin’ But Dust Drifta Hennesea Half a Clown Kinda Country Chevy Chase Stole my Wife Jiksaw Wood Burnt Red Hipflask Virgins The Secret Cabaret Bongo Monkey's Mid-Life Crisis Funky J***y Monkeys The Mess They Left Behind The Debbie Parry Band Journeyman Capas Music Patrilineals band Killerstream Weekend Anthems David Onions Mirror Mirror Zoe Devenish Music Ian Luther

We were also incredibly lucky to get heavily discounted sound engineering, lighting and staging courtesy of our friends at dB Live Sound Giglight and Intasound 🙌

Next up our wonderful sponsors for the main event Willis Westcott and M. Pinches & sons transport Ltd as well as our fabulous last minute saviours of the stage set up Alan Wilks Scaffolding Ltd Thank you 🙏

Also those who donated by way of raffle prizes Mulligans WCCC, Lakefest, Roses Theatre, Nicol and Co, Spires Travel Worcester, Morgan Motor Company The Morgan Pub and the incredibly supportive Hickory's Smokehouse who really went above and beyond to help out with our little festival!

To our generous vendors.. thank you for your kind donations in leui of a pitch fee and for making our event so great with your fabulous products! Penny’s Vintage Bar Hillbilly's Street Kitchen The Thirsty Shepherdess Pig On The Hill Events Fabionis Ruckus19 Craft Crazy Enchanted Faces UK Leona's Boutique

To some of the incredibly supportive venues who hosted our mini fundraiser events.. The Bear and Wolf The Chester Tavern The Marrs Bar The Morgan Great Malvern Barnards Green Cricket Club

And finally, we're not really sure how we'd have got through the day without our volunteers who worked tirelessly from first thing until nearly midnight! Luke, Paul, Neil, Terri, Toad, Sharon, Mike, Jo, Tucker, Iain and Leah. Thank you thank you thank you 🙌🙏

We'll have missed people 🙈🤣 but we'll keep editing the post until we get it right!

Of course we couldn't have done any of it without the people who bought tickets, donated in the buckets and generally had a blast supporting live music in order to 'Band Together' for good 🎶🧡

We love you all!

Chewie, Laura & Ruth

08/07/2024

Right.. we're getting closer to a final total.. the council bill has eaten into the pot a bit sadly.. but we do still have a few of these CDs kindly donated by the incredible The Secret Cabaret and so if anyone wants one, or the set of two, please message us and it will add to the final tally and hopefully allow us to hit our target 🙏

07/07/2024

A massive shout out to our friends at Woo Fest for another well-run & highly successful event!

The Woo Fest gang were so supportive of our efforts with BAND TOGETHER 2024 & we're so thankful for their support, as we are with everyone who helped us bring our little festival to reality.

Congratulations! 👏❤️👏

Woo Fest 2024 - done!

Words don’t suffice how incredible it all was and it’s only incredible because of people - pure and simple.

People coming together to create amazing memories whilst raising funds for a much loved charity

Thank you !

05/07/2024

Sorry folks.. we've been trying all week to get hold of Worcester City Council to find out what their final invoice amount will be and when we will receive it for payment but no response.. perhaps they have decided to wiave it 🤔
We have heard from WCC trade waste that their invoice is on the way for the extra bins... yep, we didn't even get extra bins donated 🙈
https://www.facebook.com/Worcester

04/07/2024

**Update**

We are working hard at BT HQ to get a final total and make arrangements to get the cash to our charities. We are still waiting for a couple of final invoices and promised donations but will hopefully be in a position to make an announcement in the next few days 🤞

01/07/2024

The tally is still climbing and we might break £5k in the next few days if we're lucky🤞all to be split between Worcester Street Cafe and Maggs, both Worcester based homeless charities.

We are so pleased that so many people had such a great time, especially all the lovely local St John's people who were thrilled at having an event like this nearby and thanked us for making it happen.

However, there is a reason why it doesn't happen often and is unlikely to happen again (certainly we won't book the park again) and that reason is the local council! (plus a few very unpleasant residents)

We booked the park, for a substantial fee, over a year in advance, we provided the first draft risk assessment and event plan in February 2024 and subsequent drafts thereafter. We had regular meetings with our council liaison contact, which we assumed was sufficient, and councillors chose not to attend any of our meetings. We provided all the information requested in a timely manner and we booked a ten man private security team to ensure excellent safety and security for the day.

Noise-wise, the decibel levels were checked regularly using a dB meter throughout the day.

The only issue on the day was running 20 mins over schedule, but music was still finished by 9:30 and the site cleared and packed down by 11:45pm. We had an event licence until 11pm. Everything went as smoothly as it could have done but the one thing that was out of our control was broken glass in the fountain which was left unchecked by the council prior to the event but who had insisted it be running and not be obstructed from view. Luckily there were only two minor injuries dealt with by our first aiders and we had enough security to keep children away from the fountain once we were alerted to the issue.

Yet after all our hard work, this is the negativity we were faced with from the council (screenshots below). And whilst vacuuming in the Sons of Rest building this morning we were verbally abused by a resident leaving one of our team in tears.

Interestingly, councillors were seen having a lovely time and overheard taking credit for such a great event 🤦‍♀️ St John's residents should vote wisely at the next local elections... except for the verbally abusive ones who probably shouldn't be voting at all!

Homelessness in the city of Worcester, by head of population, is at least as bad as London. This years count is 1927 which is up by just under 300 in a year. Perhaps the council should be worrying about this issue rather than critising the very people trying their best to raise badly needed funds to help address the situation via the fantastic work of charities such as Maggs and the Worcester Street Cafe.

30/06/2024

*** Breaking News ***

After an absolutely fantastic day yesterday, we're counting through the funds that we managed to raise, with your kind support.

We're still waiting to complete some final costings & have some vendor contributions to come in, but it looks like we've hit the £4500 mark!

Amazing!!

We could not have done it without you!
Thank you!

Hopefully, we'll be able to publicise the total amount raised in the next few days, but we wanted you all to know how fantastic you've been & how grateful we are for your support!

Love from,
Chewie, Ruth & Laura x

PS -
If anyone still wishes to send a little contribution our way, here is a donation link & QR code to point you in the right direction 😊

https://square.link/u/jGAhDGU1

Band Together
Maggs
Worcester Street Cafe

29/06/2024

And so it begins!

We've got a stage.. some toilets.. and Chewie!

What more do we need 🤷‍♀️🤪🤣

28/06/2024

The calm before the storm