3 November 2007

Stars of Hope Charity Gig at Princess Pavillions

A group of local teenagers are organising a charity concert in Falmouth to raise funds for Kenyan children. The gig will take place in Princess Pavilions on 23rd November, in order to raise funds for the Cornwall-based charity, Stars of Hope.

Performing will be popular local bands such as Rosie and the Goldbug, Ammunition, and The Reels, in addition to young newcomers Harry and the Hermits, and the alternative girl band, Shagrat.

“We started off as a bit of a joke, now we’re playing at Princess Pavilions! It seems farfetched, but now it’s dawned on us properly, we’re scared but really proud!” said Georgia Gendall (16), of Shagrat. “I’m very impressed that a fair bit of the success is down to some teenagers.”

Rosie Henderson, Emily Knuckey, Tim Petherick and Rachel McKie (all of Truro College or Truro High School) are in charge of the night, which succeeds a similar, extremely successful gig at Truro High School.

“At our first gig, we had seven young local bands playing, which we discovered through friends and the internet. We raised over £850, and instead of donating it straight to the charity, we asked if we could invest it in another, bigger gig, which they allowed,” said band-organiser Emily Knuckey (16). “This time, we’re aiming to raise at least £2000, hopefully nearer £3000!”

Second on the bill is My Elvis Blackout, who have enjoyed a stellar 2007: “We’ve done a few charity do’s recently because we’re extremely altruistic, well-adjusted, modern individuals. We’re also doing this one because we don’t play in the mother land very often.”

Despite the young age of the organisers, they appear to be coping well with the demands of such a huge task, as recognised by their performers. Rosie Vanier, frontwoman of headliners, Rosie and the Goldbug, said: “They are doing an amazing job of getting everyone together! We are looking forward to the show and seeing all the other bands – it will be a great night, and a good opportunity to get together and have a few drinks!

“We were not aware of the charity before, so it just goes to show that events like this are great for raising awareness and funds. It sounds like a great cause, and we are delighted to be playing.”

Georgia of Shagrat also praised the organisers for their inclusion of fledgling bands: “I think that Cornwall should give new bands more opportunities like this, because it’s something to strive for. This is huge for us!”

Stars of Hope is a Cornwall-based, non-profit organisation working locally with young people. Proceeds go to their centre in Kenya, which supports vulnerable children in poverty-stricken countries, and aims to help local people to help themselves. Their latest project is in Bali, to raise awareness and care for disabled children.

Tickets are £8 on the door, or £6 in advance, available from Princess Pavilions on 01326 211222. Apart from the small percentage of money which the Pavilions receives for tickets sold from their box office, every penny goes to charity.

2 comments:

Künstlicher said...

I chose to make this longer as I wanted to include comments from as many participants as possible, and I felt that it works better as a preview of an event when readers receive more information - although I didn't want to saturate the reader with quotes. I wanted to balance the article by featuring the opinions of one of the younger bands alongside the more established bands, to show that the organisers have ignored any hierachies when choosing their acts. I feel that if I had just focused on one band, it would have been an unbalanced article. This will be printed in the West Briton the week before the event.

Anonymous said...

Hi Laura

I agree with your own comments - you've done a good job of keeping the news structure but getting lots of energy and interest into the piece through broad interviewing.

Again, you might think about tightening up the intro a little. I think you're partly hamstrung by the blogging format in terms of information which you might pull out and use a different way in print - nonetheless, an intro of around 40 words is a little long, even for local papers.