Village Green festival attracts thousands (From Southend Standard)

Had an awful time..won't go again.

Had a great time. in fact, the best VG yet. More please.

rank

What happened to armed forces day?

Great festival and one which attracts all age groups. Super atmosphere and the weather was the icing on the cake. Well done the organisers. Also no rip off merchants holding punters to ransome on food and drink prices.

jayman wrote:
What happened to armed forces day?

There was a parade & service in the High Street, & some stalls were set up by some service organisations. I must say it was a lot better organised than the service & parade held last year, but do feel events could have been held in one of our parks.

I can second that, well done to the organisers.

I've been to all 4 VG festivals now, from the first one where only a few visitors took note, to yesterday, almost as packed as a couple of years ago.

Sometimes going early really pays of. The first band 'Under the Ice', never heard of them, now they were a cracker. An odd but absolutely marvellous mixture of trad. Irish Folk, Reggae to hints of Jazz. Very young guys too, but if they can stick together, who knows, we might hear of them again, at least I hope so.

The only letdown for me were the 'Canvey Allstars'. Jeez, a school band could have played better and the shouting off the stage that the guitarist was 'playing in the wrong f...cking key', sorry, this was a family event and they were supposed to adults. Watch your tongue.

Apart from that, a fantastic day but I wonder why it was cut so short compared to the last three events. 8pm closing, that's a bit of a weird time for an open air festival.

Oh, also not to forget all the other activities. The Sundown Arts tent was good too. so much to see and do for all ages.

Yes, I won't miss any future events organised by Metal. Great job, well done.

v.randy wrote:
Had an awful time..won't go again.

May I ask why?

Jane Shillingford (my life story) was superb, looked a real pro out there yesterday, with some witty banter, better than all that pub rock nonsense! The Correspondents were great too.

What a fantastic day, let's do it all over again today!

jayman wrote:
What happened to armed forces day?

Fun won out over jingoism.

Lefty Cyclist Type wrote:

jayman wrote:
What happened to armed forces day?

Fun won out over jingoism.

wow.. what an 'off the cuff' insulting comment.

at least AFD is a way of saying thank you in a meaningful way to the young men and women of our armed forces and in no way 'pedestals' a group of sycophantic 'darlings' yes what i need in my life is second rate music and pretentious and obscure artistic blurb..

jayman wrote:

Lefty Cyclist Type wrote:

jayman wrote:
What happened to armed forces day?

Fun won out over jingoism.

wow.. what an 'off the cuff' insulting comment.

at least AFD is a way of saying thank you in a meaningful way to the young men and women of our armed forces and in no way 'pedestals' a group of sycophantic 'darlings' yes what i need in my life is second rate music and pretentious and obscure artistic blurb..

I would rather be at the Village Green festival celebrating life, than in the town celebrating killing, death, and sending our young people off around the world to die horribly in America's wars.

im not prepared to get into such a pointless argument. its a shame you cant grasp the reality of hundreds of years of modern armed conflict.

Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote

"There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision...and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory...The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes."

he also wrote

"Unless there is some point at which you are prepared to fight against whatever odds, and whatever the threat may be, not merely to yourself but to anybody, all principles become flexible, all codes melt, and all ends-in-themselves for which we live disappear"

try to understand your own argument a bit before commenting on it...

jayman wrote:
im not prepared to get into such a pointless argument. its a shame you cant grasp the reality of hundreds of years of modern armed conflict.

Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote

"There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision...and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory...The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes."

he also wrote

"Unless there is some point at which you are prepared to fight against whatever odds, and whatever the threat may be, not merely to yourself but to anybody, all principles become flexible, all codes melt, and all ends-in-themselves for which we live disappear"

try to understand your own argument a bit before commenting on it...

Try to understand that intelligent people resolve differences without needing to resort to violence.

Lefty Cyclist Type wrote:

jayman wrote:
im not prepared to get into such a pointless argument. its a shame you cant grasp the reality of hundreds of years of modern armed conflict.

Sir Isaiah Berlin wrote

"There exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision...and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory...The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes."

he also wrote

"Unless there is some point at which you are prepared to fight against whatever odds, and whatever the threat may be, not merely to yourself but to anybody, all principles become flexible, all codes melt, and all ends-in-themselves for which we live disappear"

try to understand your own argument a bit before commenting on it...

Try to understand that intelligent people resolve differences without needing to resort to violence.

as I said.. im not going to argue about it..

"THOUSANDS of festival goers packed out Chalkwell Park in the sunshine to enjoy the fourth Village Green extravaganza on Saturday"
~
And despite assurances from the organisers after the last "Village Green" fiasco the local residents again had to put up with selfish visitors to the above event illegally parking across their drives, on pavements, double yellow lines etc etc.
~
A good event maybe, but the wrong location. It was suggested after last time that future events of this type are held on Two-tree island - lots of parking, good train and bus links and plenty of green space for the various events to take place.

Ivanna Goodhump wrote:
"THOUSANDS of festival goers packed out Chalkwell Park in the sunshine to enjoy the fourth Village Green extravaganza on Saturday"
~
And despite assurances from the organisers after the last "Village Green" fiasco the local residents again had to put up with selfish visitors to the above event illegally parking across their drives, on pavements, double yellow lines etc etc.
~
A good event maybe, but the wrong location. It was suggested after last time that future events of this type are held on Two-tree island - lots of parking, good train and bus links and plenty of green space for the various events to take place.

Oh no, someone parked 3 inches over my drive for a few hours, call the army!

There should be events like this every week in the Southend area. People were having fun and spending money which is great for the local businesses. Next year will be bigger and better

I cannot think of anything worse! Thousands of Leigh'ites' all in the same place....

huedash wrote:
I cannot think of anything worse! Thousands of Leigh'ites' all in the same place....

I can "a thousand T@@ser's like you" all in the same place!

In spite of paying much money to the council, Westcliff and Leigh cricket clubs were not allowed to play because of this silly event.

Then, when there were youth matches the following morning, the litter left by the peasants who attended made for a difficult day's play.

supershrimper wrote:
In spite of paying much money to the council, Westcliff and Leigh cricket clubs were not allowed to play because of this silly event. Then, when there were youth matches the following morning, the litter left by the peasants who attended made for a difficult day's play.

I'd rather have Village Green in the park than 'silly' cricket.

supershrimper wrote:
In spite of paying much money to the council, Westcliff and Leigh cricket clubs were not allowed to play because of this silly event.

Then, when there were youth matches the following morning, the litter left by the peasants who attended made for a difficult day's play.

'Peasants'. That sums up your attitude to others perfectly. Look down your nose a lot do you?

supershrimper wrote:
In spite of paying much money to the council, Westcliff and Leigh cricket clubs were not allowed to play because of this silly event.

Then, when there were youth matches the following morning, the litter left by the peasants who attended made for a difficult day's play.

There was one match played on Saturday.....

I too recall play going on as appeared normal. I don't know about any litter problems, I wasn't there on Sunday morning, but the Festival organisers had made sure that there were several teams of litter pickers under way all day long.

But maybe the litter problem is something that needs adressing generally, after all, wherever you go people happily throw everything everywhere. Maybe time for Britons to clean up their act more generally.

As for the parking... Let's face it, one day, how bad can that be? We live right on the seafront, can you even begin to imagine the havoc that causes during the airshow, the carnival or just any old weekend throughout the summer?

If there is a problem and you are not there to intervene, call the police, matter settled and when you are there, go out and talk to the people and I mean TALK, not scream and shout. Not had a problem outside our place ever since, despite people of course trying to take a liberty.

This then makes me wonder. Did the concerns regarding parking have anything to do with the event being so cut short over the previous years? We have a community group in Westcliff, who seem somewhat hell-bent on dealing with everything on an official, ie. legal basis.

As for the Armed Forces Day, allthough being born a German does leave me a little in doubt about this subject, I do appreciate what those young men have done and are doing for this country, though I don't want to pretend that their death were worth in, at least not in our current endeavour to win a war against the Taliban. After all, the Taliban were only a couple of decades ago the Mudjahedin, armed and trained by the USA but that's a different kettle of fish alltogether.

The most certainly is no reason to turn upon the Armed Forces, they are brave men and a lot of them have paid the ultimate price for their engagement.

Anyway, thousands did enjoy themselves and I hope this will continue into the future, not just for commercial reasons. It definitely showed that the youth in Southend are not anywhere near as bad as they are made out to be. Or did anybody get mugged, raped, murdered?

UK Fan wrote:
I too recall play going on as appeared normal. I don't know about any litter problems, I wasn't there on Sunday morning, but the Festival organisers had made sure that there were several teams of litter pickers under way all day long.

But maybe the litter problem is something that needs adressing generally, after all, wherever you go people happily throw everything everywhere. Maybe time for Britons to clean up their act more generally.

As for the parking... Let's face it, one day, how bad can that be? We live right on the seafront, can you even begin to imagine the havoc that causes during the airshow, the carnival or just any old weekend throughout the summer?

If there is a problem and you are not there to intervene, call the police, matter settled and when you are there, go out and talk to the people and I mean TALK, not scream and shout. Not had a problem outside our place ever since, despite people of course trying to take a liberty.

This then makes me wonder. Did the concerns regarding parking have anything to do with the event being so cut short over the previous years? We have a community group in Westcliff, who seem somewhat hell-bent on dealing with everything on an official, ie. legal basis.

As for the Armed Forces Day, allthough being born a German does leave me a little in doubt about this subject, I do appreciate what those young men have done and are doing for this country, though I don't want to pretend that their death were worth in, at least not in our current endeavour to win a war against the Taliban. After all, the Taliban were only a couple of decades ago the Mudjahedin, armed and trained by the USA but that's a different kettle of fish alltogether.

The most certainly is no reason to turn upon the Armed Forces, they are brave men and a lot of them have paid the ultimate price for their engagement.

Anyway, thousands did enjoy themselves and I hope this will continue into the future, not just for commercial reasons. It definitely showed that the youth in Southend are not anywhere near as bad as they are made out to be. Or did anybody get mugged, raped, murdered?

sorry uk fan..

i do not intend for this to be another argument of different opinions, but i would just like to say that armed forces day was supposed to be a celebration of our armed forces.

however.. SBC have treated this celebration as a mere fad and i fear the concept of saying thank you to the living veterans and serving armed forces is being kicked into the long grass.

i don't think our collection of self interested councillors got the gist, there are lots of potential 'soon to be laid off' military service personnel that will soon be settling into Southend and surrounding areas as a civilian home.. if you think the sovereign debt is bad the debt owed to our armed forces is astronomic and one that demands payment...