Our final day of the Castle Vale Community Games was a great one despite the changeable weather. Known as Super Saturday in the Olympics calendar, we certainly made sure that our Saturday was a super one to finish off the week.
Throughout the day people of all ages joined in with the drumming workshops by Glamba Samba and the flag making workshops with Benny Semp. We also made our final float of the week.
We were joined by a fantastic band in the afternoon, curtosy of THSH (Town Hall Symphony Hall) who played some fantastic New Orleans style jazz out in the sun for their first performance and then in the marquee when the rain came pouring down.
There were lots of other activities in the park as well – a climbing wall, archery, boxing, a rodeo bull, a mini-olympics area, table-tennis and some wii-sports action.
Considering the weather forecasts we did very well and the people of Castle Vale weren’t put off when the rain came, running for shelter in the park on the first light shower and the second deluge that came down later. There was a moment where we thought perhaps the parade couldn’t happen and a back up plan started to form. But at 3.45pm just at the time we had been planning to parade, the sun and blue skies reappeared. We quickly formed our parade line and made our way around and through the park with at least 70 people joining in. The floats, the flags, the jazz band, the drummers and lots of enthusiastic people made the most of the closing parade, with an occasional back drop of thunder.
The day had come to an end and just as we started to pack away the rain came down again but saved its massive down pour for when we were done and in our cars.
Thank you to everyone who has been involved over the week, joined in with the activities or supported what seemed to be very mad ideas, but as we all found out, made a brilliant contribution to our own games week and experience of the Olympics. It has been great joining up AACV and CVEC (Castle Vale Events Committee) to run the weeks arts activities, particularly thanks to Jan who got really stuck in. Also thank you to Richard Mytton for coordinating the whole week and CVCHA for making it happen.
We hope that the other activities went well on the estate including the Water Festival who were getting wet in the Swimming Baths rather than the park!
Everyone has asked what is coming next. There are some exciting plans to announce over the next few weeks but as a teaser lets just say that we’ll be building on all the enthusiasm and interest.
Here’s a few more photos from the day for you to see how much fun we had.
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Great celebration! Thank you to all people who helped to organise such a marvellous week!