St Andrew's Church, Ramsbottom

So that’s the Ramsbottom Jigsaw festival done for another year – and, yet again, it has only been made possible by the help of so many people. We have hopefully thanked you all along the way but it still needs to be said again – Thank you every one of you, we could not have done it without you!First we have to thank our organising committee for planning, co-ordinating and delivering a successful event for a tenth time.Then there are those people who have donated puzzles and the people who have assembled them for us (often one and the same). For many of you, your contribution to our 2024 event began the moment the 2023 festival ended. Next came the collecting in of those puzzles either by our regular Drop Off Days at St Paul’s or visits to people unable to travel in. That’s a lot of manhours of sorting, bagging and storing puzzles plus a flash sale thrown in for good measure- so thank you to the committee members and their helpers who gave up a lot of Saturday mornings and other time. A constant struggle for us is to have enough cardboard to make puzzles on. In June we were contacted by Rachael Slater, organiser of a jigsaw festival in Launceston, Cornwall who offered us a pallet of tailormade cardboard. It got better still when, her husband Chris’s employer DS Smith plc offered to pay transport costs. It was lovely too that Rachael and Chris came all the way north to visit the festival so we actually got chance to thank them face to face. In fact, her visit to our event has made up Rachael’s mind to hold a second jigsaw festival in Launceston next year (whether or not she will thank us for that in eleven months’ time remains to be seen. A lot of difficult work ahead, Rachael, but we are sure you are more than up to it!)When September comes around, focus switches from the puzzles to the practicalities of converting St Paul’s Church to stage a four day event (and thank you to the parishioners inconvenienced by it all). St Paul’s Bell Ringers began by bringing down a lot of heavy wooden boards and cardboard from on top of the Parish Room. Next came the Sunday setting up of the church and again we had plenty of volunteers willing to give up their Sunday for the cause. Monday and Tuesday saw attention switch back to the puzzles with people both at Edenfield Parish Church and St Paul’s sorting the puzzles held there then transporting them by a convoy of cars from the former to the latter, storing them at St Paul’s and setting out the opening display. All of this took time and effort freely given.Our annual Preview Evening is an exclusive event for those that have helped us and includes the official opening ceremony, this year performed by the Mayor of Rossendale, Cllr Judith Driver who spent considerable time meeting and speaking to as many of our helpers as possible. The four days of the festival require a host of people – from front door and raffle to stewards, stock room and sales desk staff, from those working in the café and kitchen and those baking our deservedly acclaimed cakes. When it’s a year as hectic as this one – all of this is hard, hard work but yet again our volunteers signed up and got stuck in – significantly contributing to our visitors’ enjoyment as many visitors book comments record,Once again, it was a delight to feature live music every day of the festival and helpers and visitors alike enjoyed the music of mandolinist Sharon Bell (who has already confirmed she will be back next year – that’s official now Sharon!)When the doors closed on our 2024 festival, the hard work continued – with a hard deadline to have St Paul’s back to normal for the Sunday service. We did it and in record time but only thanks to the sheer numbers of people who came along to lift and carry boards, chairs and tables, bag and store remaining puzzles and to load, drive to Edenfield and unload cars.We hope, given deadlines and the sheer number of visitors this year that, even though it has sometimes been challenging, all of our volunteers, returning and new, have enjoyed the experience too, Hopefully see you all in 2025.We must also thank our two sponsors – Gibsons for their seventh year of supporting the festival and Wentworth Wooden Puzzles for a third year of The Wentworth Café. A number of other puzzle companies (along with the sponsors) donated brand new puzzles for sale at the festival. Once more this year, Tesco and Morrisons branches in Ramsbottom both made generous donations of provisions for the café.Hopefully that is almost everyone (and if we have missed someone, we sincerely apologise), The final thank you though must go to all our visitors who, year after year, come along to support us -this year from as far apart in the UK as Newcastle Upon Tyne to our friends from Launceston and overseas, from the Netherlands. We hope that all our visitors feel that we put on an event worth their trip (our visitors’ book suggests many do) – and appreciate that the “we” in question is definitely a large number of people who, only by offering their time and skills, collectively make this big, inclusive community event work. We have hopefully thanked you all along the way but it still needs to be said again – Thank you every one of you, we could not have done it without you!First we have to thank our organising committee for planning, co-ordinating and delivering a successful event for a tenth time.Then there are those people who have donated puzzles and the people who have assembled them for us (often one and the same). For many of you, your contribution to our 2024 event began the moment the 2023 festival ended. Next came the collecting in of those puzzles either by our regular Drop Off Days at St Paul’s or visits to people unable to travel in. That’s a lot of manhours of sorting, bagging and storing puzzles plus a flash sale thrown in for good measure- so thank you to the committee members and their helpers who gave up a lot of Saturday mornings and other time. A constant struggle for us is to have enough cardboard to make puzzles on. In June we were contacted by Rachael Slater, organiser of a jigsaw festival in Launceston, Cornwall who offered us a pallet of tailormade cardboard. It got better still when, her husband Chris’s employer DS Smith plc offered to pay transport costs. It was lovely too that Rachael and Chris came all the way north to visit the festival so we actually got chance to thank them face to face. In fact, her visit to our event has made up Rachael’s mind to hold a second jigsaw festival in Launceston next year (whether or not she will thank us for that in eleven months’ time remains to be seen. A lot of difficult work ahead, Rachael, but we are sure you are more than up to it!)When September comes around, focus switches from the puzzles to the practicalities of converting St Paul’s Church to stage a four day event (and thank you to the parishioners inconvenienced by it all). St Paul’s Bell Ringers began by bringing down a lot of heavy wooden boards and cardboard from on top of the Parish Room. Next came the Sunday setting up of the church and again we had plenty of volunteers willing to give up their Sunday for the cause. Monday and Tuesday saw attention switch back to the puzzles with people both at Edenfield Parish Church and St Paul’s sorting the puzzles held there then transporting them by a convoy of cars from the former to the latter, storing them at St Paul’s and setting out the opening display. All of this took time and effort freely given.Our annual Preview Evening is an exclusive event for those that have helped us and includes the official opening ceremony, this year performed by the Mayor of Rossendale, Cllr Judith Driver who spent considerable time meeting and speaking to as many of our helpers as possible. The four days of the festival require a host of people – from front door and raffle to stewards, stock room and sales desk staff, from those working in the café and kitchen and those baking our deservedly acclaimed cakes. When it’s a year as hectic as this one – all of this is hard, hard work but yet again our volunteers signed up and got stuck in – significantly contributing to our visitors’ enjoyment as many visitors book comments record,Once again, it was a delight to feature live music every day of the festival and helpers and visitors alike enjoyed the music of mandolinist Sharon Bell (who has already confirmed she will be back next year – that’s official now Sharon!)When the doors closed on our 2024 festival, the hard work continued – with a hard deadline to have St Paul’s back to normal for the Sunday service. We did it and in record time but only thanks to the sheer numbers of people who came along to lift and carry boards, chairs and tables, bag and store remaining puzzles and to load, drive to Edenfield and unload cars.We hope, given deadlines and the sheer number of visitors this year that, even though it has sometimes been challenging, all of our volunteers, returning and new, have enjoyed the experience too, Hopefully see you all in 2025.We must also thank our two sponsors – Gibsons for their seventh year of supporting the festival and Wentworth Wooden Puzzles for a third year of The Wentworth Café. A number of other puzzle companies (along with the sponsors) donated brand new puzzles for sale at the festival. Once more this year, Tesco and Morrisons branches in Ramsbottom both made generous donations of provisions for the café.Hopefully that is almost everyone (and if we have missed someone, we sincerely apologise), The final thank you though must go to all our visitors who, year after year, come along to support us -this year from as far apart in the UK as Newcastle Upon Tyne to our friends from Launceston and overseas, from the Netherlands. We hope that all our visitors feel that we put on an event worth their trip (our visitors’ book suggests many do) – and appreciate that the “we” in question is definitely a large number of people who, only by offering their time and skills, collectively make this big, inclusive community event work.

St Andrew's Church, Ramsbottom

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Ramsbottom Jigsaw Festival News