Youth festival receives £1,000 for workshops

A GRANT of £1,000 has been awarded to Henley Youth Festival.

It had initially applied for £1,800 to help fund its school workshops and performance programme during the annual event.

The festival also wants to fund an “Arts in Residence” week at Gillotts School for pupils to produce a piece of art or performance from their workshops.

At a meeting of the full council on Tuesday last week, Councillor Stefan Gawrysiak proposed awarding the festival £1,000.

He said the lesser figure was down to a large amount of grant applications which has put pressure on the council’s budget.

Cllr Gawrysiak said: “The Henley Youth Festival is a fantastic organisation that really encourages the youth of Henley to tread the boards, play an instrument and it does drama festivals, music festivals, and everything. We should, as a town council, be definitely encouraging it.

“But we did look at the balances of their funds and they have sufficient for this year to actually put on a show.”

He added that if the festival needed more in future that it should apply for the next funding round in March, which has a budget of £5,000 set aside for it.

The council agreed to the proposal and ratified more than £5,000 of grants being awarded to charities and community groups, which had been recommended by its finance strategy and management committee.

They included £1,500 to the 447 Henley Air Cadets Corps to purchase mannequins for first aid training and help with running costs.

Other beneficiaries included Greener Henley, the Friends of Badgemore School, Henley Youth Choir, the Berkshire MS Society and the Henley Arts Trail.