For those of you who remember, the Fete of 2024 was really wet and last year it was windy.The Fete of 2026 shall be remembered as being on the hottest May day Bank Holiday since records began.

In spite of all that, this year's Shipley Fete was a fantastic success and I would like to thank everyone who volunteered, and everyone who came to support us and hopefully enjoy the day. Shipley Fete is a very special day, when the whole community comes together and it is amazing how much there is to see and do.

Our Fete, was described by one visitor as being the quintessential village fete, high praise indeed and personally I love how everyone comes together to make it such a great occasion. As ever it was a lovely mix of old and new, with traditional stalls such as the coconut shy, plant stall, bbq, books, bar, grand draw, tea and cakes, and new stalls such as fish sales, garden design, jewellery, bee keeping and a very popular entry the “Tree of Fortune”!

As ever we try to keep those elements which work and think of new things. It was so fantastic to be given access to the field this year, which allowed us to spread out and have even more stalls than last year. We also extended the free music recital in Church, which is getting very popular and kept the Teddy Bear Zip Line, which is great fun.

The Fete does not magically appear and takes a lot of thought and preparation. This year's Fete was supported by the ever lovely bunch of volunteers - The Committee - who have spent the last 6 months hanging out in the Countryman, discussing and planning what we could do to make the Fete even better than before. It has been a lot of work but brilliant fun and I would like to thank everyone for all their ideas and their hard work in bringing those ideas into being.