HERITAGE FESTIVAL – PICS AND STORY
Families enjoy food, fun and games at PAHS sports fields celebrations
The day began at 6am on Saturday as the Talk of the Town team met at the Port Alfred High School sports fields to set up for its first Heritage Day Festival. The gates opened for visitors at 9am.
Yet this was just the culmination of months of planning and organising by the Talk of the Town team.
“We learnt a lot from organising this year’s festival,” said Tiso Blackstar business manager for community newspapers, Mauneen Charter.
In total there were more than 45 stalls set up around the fields and Ads manager for community newspapers, Anneli Hanstein, made sure that no two stalls sold the same items. I-Gen was also at the festival and provided free Wi-Fi to all those who registered at their stall.
Port Alfred High School visual aids club along with Tali Alexandre, played the music from the clubhouse balcony and controlled the sound system. Reporter Rob Knowles was the roving announcer on the day and the whole team manned the gates or cooked the boerewors, or were judges in the various competitions, among the various other roles they played on the day.
“There are so many people to thank,” said Charter. These included those who sponsored prizes, Will Zone, Sohan Toys, Stuart Lavendar, Salon Florence, The Halyards Hotel, Tash’s Craft Bar, C’est la Vie!, The Rep Apple Emporium, Standerwick Garden Centre & Nursery, Decadent, Yay Sushi, Sheilan House Guesthouse, Sunshine Juice, Graze by the River, Stenden SA, Homebase, Stabila, Cherrywood Nursery, Royal St Andrews, Bean & Olive, Home Essentials, Richman Poorman, Garden of Eaden, Hoppy’s Paddle Inn, Bite My Designs, Outdoor Focus, Seven Oaks Photography, Leach Pharmacy, Yummylicious, Fish River Resort, Bcreative/Goshawk, Buco Port Alfred and KNA.
There were also those who gave a donation to the festival and these included Dave Lawson, Barry Allen from Adviceworx, Panther Security and Louwrens van Rooyen and Jeff Cowley.
Sponsors of service and products included Pick n Pay, Wharf Street Fruit & Veg, Woza Williams, LP Gaz, Kowie Auctioneers, Rosehill SUPERSPAR and Multi Security.
Finally, thanks to Simon Oliver at Seeff who sponsored four teams of pupils from PAHS to enter the Potjiekos competition.
From the comments received from visitors it seems that this was a very successful festival, with some saying that they were regular festival-goers and thought the Talk of the Town Heritage Festival was a great event. Many of the vendors on the day said they would be back next year and any time Talk of the Town held a festival.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the competitions, especially the Little Miss Heritage and super heroes competions. The Tug of War was well supported and there is a need for this to continue in future festivals. The potjiekos competition saw Stenden students walking away with top honours.