Join in the dancing at Royal Welsh Festival
The Royal Welsh Agricultural Society’s Smallholder and Garden Festival has been helping to popularise and foster interest in traditional folk dancing since it was included in the programme of the event in 2008. Its introduction was an immediate success and this year the repertoire will embrace Cornish, Irish, Welsh, Scottish, Morris, Appalachian and old English sequence dancing.
Folk dancing forms part of the British cultural heritage and originated years ago as the dances of ‘common folk’ as opposed to those if ‘high society’. At the Smallholder and Garden Festival the dance programme is designed to appeal to all.
Everyone is welcome to join in and have fun, or they can sit out the dancing and watch. For those who want to have a go but are reluctant to try their skills without some help and reassurance, there will be a variety of demonstrations of each dance tradition given by enthusiasts who know all the right steps.
This year’s two-day Smallholder and Garden Festival will be held over the weekend of May 15 and 16 at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, and the dancing will take place in the Royal Welsh showground’s Montgomery Pavilion.
New dance teams this year will include Appalachian Dancers ‘Raising the Dust’, and Cornish dancers, Ros Keltek, pay their first visit to the Festival along with Kilkenny dance groups from Ireland. If you enjoyed Riverdance and Lord of the Dance you must see the Irish step dances and the traditional Irish set dances.
Among those returning to the Festival are the ‘Forest of Dean Morrismen’, the ladies clog dancing team ‘Wimberry Cloggers’, the Scottish country dance group ‘Celtic Links’, and the ‘Old English’ sequence dancers from Garth, near Builth Wells.
All the groups have their own musicians and this year Celtic Links will be accompanied by Phill Jones (Squeezy Piano) from Cambridge. Each day following lunch the dance teams will hold a parade – weather permitting – which will be led by a piper, Alastair Shaw, from Cheltenham.
All the same groups will get together on Saturday night at the Festival for a ceiledh when they will take turns in leading the dances in the Montgomery Pavilion between 7.30pm and 10.30pm.
“This will be the third Folk Dance Festival at Llanelwedd and we look forward to seeing you at the pavilion,” said Peter Brock, the Festival Co-ordinator. “A warm welcome awaits you.”
Some of Britain’s best high-speed chainsaw operators will be sending woodchips flying when they compete for the 2010 UK logging championships at the Royal Welsh Show in July.
The championships, which are being hosted by the Royal Welsh for the first time, aim to find the fastest and most accurate chainsaw experts in the art of tree felling and logging in the country. The winners will go on to represent the UK in the world championships in Croatia later this year.
Up to 30 competitors in three classes will take part in the event which calls for nerves of steel, skill and speed, all tested against the stop watch.
The only part of the contest not taking place on the showground will be the felling of the trees. This will be carried out in nearby woodland where competitors can earn a maximum of 600 points. No-one in the UK, however, has yet succeeded in achieving this score although the best has come close with 658. A cash jackpot awaits the first person to reach the target.
Competitors will demonstrate their skills at limbing – also known as snedding – which involves removing the branches from a fallen tree. For competition purposes, short pegs are hammered into the tree trunk to represent the branches and competitors, racing in pairs, can clear the ‘branches’ from a 30ft pole in about 20 seconds. Any damage to the trunk, or any pegs left proud, lose points.
Other elements of the competition include combination cutting and precision cutting, both of which are testing and difficult to perform against the clock.
The ability of competitors to remove the casing, chain and guide bar from a chainsaw, refit a new chain and reassemble the machine at speed is also part of the contest. Cuts on the hands from the razor-sharp chains lose points.
This year’s four-day Royal Welsh Show at Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, takes place from Monday July 19 to Thursday July 22 but the logging championships will begin with the felling of trees on Sunday, July 18. The major part of the competition will take place on the Monday of show week and on Tuesday and Wednesday the competitors will demonstrate the skills required in logging and meet visitors and prospective competitors.
The Royal Welsh Show has always promoted safe working practice with chainsaws and has staged its own logging competitions at various locations throughout Wales for 20 years. All these events are governed by Health and Safety regulations and infringement of the guidelines results in either the disqualification of the chainsaw competitor or the punitive reduction of points. All competitors must show a certificate of competence and use protective clothing and equipment.
Prizes will be awarded for each event of the championships to the overall winner, the junior (under 25) winner, the best newcomer and the best overseas guest competitor.
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