Welcome to the award winning Ilkley Chat!

Ilkley Carnival 2017 makes record breaking profit

 

Ilkley Carnival 2017 has raised an outstanding £17,200 breaking its fundraising record by £2k.

 

Primary beneficiaries, the Junior Ilkley Harriers, will receive £8,600 of the overall funds raised, promising ‘invaluable’ state-of-the-art sporting facilities for the community’s young athletes.

 

Also breaking records with more than 1,000 participants in the spectacular ‘At The Movies’ themed parade and in excess of 10,000 visitors through the main gates of the carnival showground, carnival committee chairman Andrew Stacey said this year has surpassed all expectations.

 

“Every year we say that Ilkley Carnival is getting ‘bigger and better’ and this year it has been truly phenomenal – not only with the fantastic funds raised but also with the buy in from our community; from the schools, parents and organisations making a spectacular parade to the sponsorship and support from local businesses, including the fantastic help from Tesco this year.”

 

The remaining profits raised will be split between local organisations, charities and community groups who volunteered and supported on the day covering tasks from managing the gates, ticket sales, traffic marshalls, showground set up and take down at the end of the day.

 

Alison Bennett of the Junior Ilkley Harriers, said the club is delighted to be receiving such a generous donation which will fund the installation of the shot put area on the proposed Compact Athletics Training facility at the at the club’s Ben Rhydding sports ground.  

 

“We are delighted beyond words with the generosity of the donation from Ilkley Carnival and can’t thank our community enough for such fantastic support of the event which is now directly improving the lives of so many local children by giving us the resources to improve our much needed sporting facilities.

 

“The interest in athletics is increasing every year and our youngsters currently have

no all weather 'real' athletics facilities to train on. Our plans are to provide basic entry level athletics facilities for running, jumping and throwing with the Carnival funding specifically used to install a shale shot put landing area which will enable local children as young as six to try the activity as well as older juniors to train for competition ''

 

She added: “The funding from Ilkley Carnival will go a long way towards covering this cost and we hope the new facility will be installed by Easter 2018. Being a beneficiary for the Ilkley Carnival has been absolutely fantastic for our club and I’d encourage all local groups, charities and organisations to start thinking about applying to be a 2018 Ilkley Carnival beneficiary now!”