GRASSINGTON'S Dickensian Festival will face a major overhaul - it was decided at a public meeting this week.

Almost 50 people attended the meeting on Tuesday at the Forrester's Arms to determine the future of Grassington's Dickensian Festival.

The festival, which started in 1982 and runs over three weekends in December, was first organised by Grassington Chamber of Trade with help from local volunteers.

However, since then, the festival has become unrecognisable from the simple community event it once was and in some ways has become a victim of its own popularity.

Martyn Fretwell, chairman of Grassington Chamber of Trade, said: "Year by year, the occasion grew in size and popularity until, of course, to organise it became a seriously complicated task. In latter years, this has escalated into an enormous management procedure, which employs a full-time co-ordinator."

The brunt of organising the event has fallen on the shoulders of a handful of members of the Chamber of Trade, some local traders and residents and Mary Wilkinson, who has acted as co-odinator for the last five years.

Mrs Wilkinson, who confirmed she would be stepping down, said: "The festival is being spoilt by its own success, too many people are coming with high expectations, whilst locals want to participate less and less. Fewer charities are wanting stalls, they'd rather do their fundraising on other days."

She added that this had meant money was taken out of the Dale as small traders were coming in from all over the country to take the places originally reserved for local traders and charities.

Mrs Wilkinson added: "It was a great disappointment after I have worked all year that hardly anyone turned out on the two Sundays to erect or dismantle. When only two to four people turn up it's soul destroying!

"I think we need some new blood and some new ideas, the festival needs to be exciting. I'm too tired to give any more new ideas. Perhaps we should be first with a new idea that is not so labour intensive."

Mr Fretwell said people had three choices. They could agree to carry on with the festival but would face a ten-month schedule of organisation, organise a completely different Christmas celebration, or just have a simple annual display of trees and lights in the village.

Mr Fretwell urged people to consider that the loss of the festival could have serious knock-on effects.

He said: "The situation is so serious that businesses could fold. Summer trading alone would not bring them a livelihood. The closure of a number of stores would inevitably have a knock-on effect upon other businesses in the village and on Grassington itself as a community."

When asked if people wanted to scrap the event altogether, resident and committee member Beryl Bamforth said: "It would not particularly bother me if it finished as I'm not in any business. I know quite a lot of people who would quite happily let it die a death."

Suzanne Trewartha, who runs a guesthouse in the town, did not think the event could carry on such a big scale. "Some people think that more people mean more money but it can actually mean that some people stay away because it is so busy."

However Colin Hird, treasurer of Grassington Chamber of Trade, said: "I've been in business here since 1993 and that's long enough for me to know that if we don't have this input of cash generated by the festival we'll have a real problem."

Rita Richardson, landlady of the Forrester's Arms added the Dickensian meant she could keep staff on over winter and create employment in the area.

A vote was taken and there was a unanimous show of hands in support of keeping the Dickensian alive. However, the general feeling was that a comprehensive overhaul of the way the event was organised was needed for this year's festivities and a totally different kind of event could be organised for the year after.

A large amount of people who attended the meeting then signed up to be members of a Dickensian committee. They will meet on February 15 at the Forrester's Arms to decide the technicalities of the event, if changes are necessary and how it will be organised this year.

Threshfield lady Rosemary Biggin has offered to become the new co-ordinator.

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