Battersea Jubilee Festival – an idea ready to fly

I got a call recently from Philip from Battersea United Charities about developing an inspiring idea to celebrate Battersea and the Queen’s Jubilee. We hope this will galvanise and excite people across Battersea.

Many of us have been thinking about initiatives to mark this year’s historic Platinum Jubilee and after very encouraging initial conversations with the Battersea Arts Centre, Battersea Summer Scheme and others, would like to pursue ideas further, with a proposed concept of a ‘Battersea Jubilee Festival’.

The nascent vision is to pull together a range of charities and other organisations to organise a wide range of activities as an extended ‘Battersea Jubilee Festival’: a big community-engaging initiative to pick everyone out of lockdown and bring a lot of joy into lives, all under the Jubilee Festival umbrella and in a spirit of celebration. The festival could leave a wonderful legacy of life experience for all involved and touched by it, and any other legacy that extended beyond the year, would be a bonus.

We want to work with everyone interested to bring Battersea together as one. For now, the specifics are understandably unclear, but we feel like it is all going to take wing and fly, gathering increasing support as we move things forward. It may also involve a collective effort at raising funds.

The idea of the Festival would involve a myriad of activities, over an extended period of time – all interconnected as elements of the whole. We may have a launch event and some collective events.

That’s the rough gist of it.

First Meeting

So a group of 20 local people met last Friday (17Feb22) and discussed the following:

We all liked the idea of a Battersea Jubilee Festival. We will work together to make it happen.

We need to develop a brand for this festival. Jason from Riverside Radio is going to run a competition with local young people and schools to develop a logo (see the post above).

Many of us are going to host a number of community events e.g. street parties, Big Lunches, over the coming year, with a particular focus on w/c30th May (the national celebrations are focusing on 2-5th June). We will develop a timetable of activities to share with local residents, so they know what’s going on. Events already in development include a St Mary’s/KLS party, Power Station street party, Battersea Volunteers  ‘Thank You’ event for local volunteers, Riverside Radio 70 stories, WoW Mums tea party and more. We may have a launch event and closing ceremony (similar to the Olympics) but need to discuss this further.

Other ideas included developing a Jubilee song that we can sing at all events. Alex from the Battersea Power Station is leading on this. And developing a piece of public art e.g. mural/sculpture. We need to think more about the legacy and fundraising too.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is happening on 4th March, 12-1pm at Riverside Radio offices, 281-285 Battersea Park Rd, London SW11.

This is an open meeting so do invite others along – all are welcome. Come and join in the Festival.

Contact 

Aaron Barbour, KLS Director

[email protected]

020 7223 2845

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