Festival Objectives
The Idea
Our vision is to stage a major Christian festival which nobody in the town can ignore. Through this nine-day festival we want to witness to our common faith in Jesus, crucified and risen; and in doing so show the difference that Jesus makes not only to us as individuals but also to how we as churches seek to serve the community. The physical focus of the Festival will be a 1000-seater marquee in Central Park, which will be the venue for a wide variety of events, appealing to people of all ages. However, the festival will not be limited to Central Park. We hope that there will be festival events taking place throughout the Borough – with each church and Christian organisation making its own particular contribution.
A festival for all the churches
The origins of the Festival lies in an initiative of the main town-centre churches: viz. the Cathedral, Central Baptist Church, Christchurch URC, Our Lady Immaculate Roman Catholic Church, the Salvation Army and Trinity Methodist Church. The desire of the town-centre churches, however, is to involve all the churches and Christian organisations within the Borough of Chelmsford in the Christian Festival. Indeed, already the Festival committees are representative of the wider group of churches in Chelmsford.
A festival embracing the Borough of Chelmsford
From the start individual Borough Councillors have been enthusiastic in their involvement in the planning of the Festival; and to our delight in the autumn of 2007 the Borough Council formally agreed to support the Chelmsford Christian Festival. The Management Committee is chaired by Mr David Boyle, Vice Chair of the Essex Community Foundation and a former High Sheriff of Essex.
With the help of the Borough we are currently looking for some practical ways in which we can serve our community. We envisage running several projects within the borough – along the lines of the ‘Soul in the City’ initiatives in Manchester and London.
Management / Organisation
The Festival organisers have established themselves as a charitable trust, and the Association is made up of the town centre churches, plus Chelmsford Borough Council, the Trustees being the Leaders of those same churches.
The Management Committee is made up of at least one member from each of these churches, myself from the Borough Council, and the Chairmen of the relevant sub-committees, assuming they are not already represented.
The churches are:-
Management Board /Committee
-
Mr David Boyle
Management Committee Chairman
-
Mr. John Spence
Chelmsford Cathedral – Management Committee Vice-Chairman - Chairman of the Finance Committee
-
Mr. Michael Malone-Lee
Secretary to the Management Committee
-
Revd. Dr. Paul Beasley-Murray
Central Baptist Church - Chairman of the Programme Committee
-
Mr. Des Kelly
Our Lady Immaculate Roman Catholic Church – Chairman of the Youth Committee
-
Mr. John Hayman
Trinity Methodist Church – Chairman of the Venue Committee (Most duties now handled by festival consultants)
-
Mr. Steven Webb
Publicity & Marketing Committee Chairman
-
Mrs. Jean McAslan
Christ Church URC
-
Mr. Ralf Cook
Salvation Army
-
Mr David Lee
All Saints Church, Springfield
Sub-Committees
Advisors
We have appointed event management consultants Sally Paterson and David Cullen of Sand Consulting, who have many years experience in organising and managing festivals around the UK and have spent many years involved with the Greenbelt Festival, David being one of the Trustees.
Contact
We would be delighted to hear offers of help, ideas and suggestions.
To make your views known please email the organisers
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
