What a day! The sun shone on the righteous the entire Hartley Wintney Village 2012 Festival and the crowds turned out in force!

David Walton and Gary Comerford set up our ‘pitch’ in some challengingly windy conditions, but as soon as the festival got off to a start it all settled down. We were well represented this year: HAG Youngstars featured in the procession as the equine event for the Olympics theme. The crew managed to field TWO pantomime horses – an exceptional feat considering the fact that sun had shone throughout, the heat must’ve been unbearable.

HAG Rocks! choir belted out three great tunes across the site at 2.40pm (earlier than advertised – you should have seen the ‘muster rush’!). It was a proud moment for the choir and HAG members – their first large event with a thousand eyes watching. The crowd enjoyed the choir and many enquiries were taken on the stand afterwards.

Hundreds of leaflets were handed out by Sue Molyneux, Iain Eggeling and myself. Antonia Demetriadi managed to raise a good deal of money with her and William’s (her son) Darts Game on the HAG stand – the prizes were all donated or made by her – a sterling effort indeed and one I hope other HAG members will be inclined to help with in future as we were very under-staffed.

But, all in all, it was a day to cherish, a day to show the community that HAG is for everyone – on-stage or off, and above all a day of community and friendship.