Upchurch Scout Group regrets to announce that this year's Upchurch Family Fireworks Display has been cancelled. The site field is already very wet and with heavy persistent rain forecast between Thursday night and Saturday, the conditions in the field, particularly in the car parks would make it difficult to enter and exit the field safely. The very wet ground poses a potential safety issue in terms of access for emergency vehicles and a logistics issue for our deliveries. Those that came last year will recall the problems to traffic flow that the wet field caused. This year the field is already as wet and it is highly unlikely to dry out in time even if the weather did clear on Saturday as some are forecasting.
In 2008 we suffered losses for the first time in our history due to the poor weather. As a charity we could not justify risking the outlay required for the 2009 display. We came back in 2010 with an agreed set of procedures to minimise the risk to the group and its funds. During an emergency committee meeting tonight, it was decided, based on those procedures and the potential safety risk, to cancel the 2011 display and minimise the potential losses to the group by taking an early decision.
Upchurch Scout Group would like to apologise to our customers, stall holders and sponsors for any inconvenience caused. A vast amount of people give up their time to make this happen and because of the amount of volunteer work involved, it is not possible to reschedule the event.
It’s a very sad decision for those of us who have spent months working on the display but we hope you understand that we have a duty to ensure the safety of the display and also to protect the funding of the group.
We hope you will come back and support us again in the future. We’d be pleased to hear any comments you have on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/upchurchfireworks
Mike Powell
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