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Keep the MHD bookings coming...
by Announcements for May HeyDays 07 Dec '23

07 Dec '23

Dear MHD Supporters It was very encouraging that our recent update produced a (small) flurry of applications for Early-bird tickets and steward roles. Do keep them coming and it would be particularly good for those planning to steward to get in early - to help our steward organisers to set up rotas but also for volunteers to get slots they would prefer to oversee. Also, please all remember the weekend and steward prices go up on 1st February; it would help me if you did not all wait to 31st January to apply! I will be somewhat slower in responding to applications or queries from 11th December, due to a planned operation on the 12th which will impede things a bit - but I will get round to all, so don't let that put you off making contact. If you have already applied, apologies that it is easier for me to contact you within the list of all supporters, rather than excluding you. Do try not to send in another form (and money!) - which does happen occasionally.... Finally, if you are still on our list for historical reasons and would prefer not to receive any more mail from May Heydays, do let me know and I will remove you from the list. Many thanks and, again, best wishes to all. Monty Crook MHD Ticketing PS: I apologise for spelling Rodney Miller's surname wrongly in our last note - which quickly got spotted when the update was put on Facebook.

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MHD '24 update
by Announcements for May HeyDays 02 Dec '23

02 Dec '23

Dear Supporters If you received and read our first announcement about ticket sales, you probably noticed the booking form was not actually attached - sorry about that. Forms are now attached in PDF and Word format. You can, of course, also find the forms for dancers and stewards here: https://mayheydays.org.uk/tickets.html https://mayheydays.org.uk/stewards.html Remember that Early-bird prices finish on 31st January. Mecki is busy fine-tuning the programme and trying to accommodate the needs and wishes of bands, callers and sound team – a bit like juggling with 4 squirrels at once… She’s also trialling a gender-free option across International, English and American streams, with just one-such event at any time in the regular programme. So, there will be plenty of choice for all – including an increased spread of non-dance events, with more musicians' and singing workshops, plus some story telling. Remember, you can see all on the programme page: (https://mayheydays.org.uk/programme.html). Some people may not know of our booked U.S. musicians, the Lighthouse band; they are an off-shoot of the Rodney Millar band of whom you are more likely to have heard. They’re very accomplished players for American styles of dancing. Here is an idea of what they’ll sound like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNOE4W_kMGY. The other good news is that we have now found a local caterer who will take on the full catering service for the weekend. More info will be provided in due course, and we'll put details on the website. Account will be taken of a range of allergies and food preferences (such as vegetarian/gluten-free, etc). However, the caterer may not be able to provide for very individual needs, so please don’t try to make contact with the caterer to ask for your detailed specific diet - you may need to bring and prepare your own food at the school. In this case, please talk to us and we can give you access to a small kitchen area with a microwave oven. (Obviously, this facility cannot be made widely available). Best wishes to all for the festive season, Mecki and Monty Tel 01308 423 442

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May Heydays 2024, 3rd - 6th May
by Announcements for May HeyDays 30 Sep '23

30 Sep '23

Dear Supporters The May Heydays team is pleased to announce that tickets for 2024 are on sale from tomorrow. Prices are as for 2023, £97 per person for an Early-Bird weekend ticket, with £20pp for camping. Under 18s’ and full-time students’ tickets are £48 with camping at £10. Stewards’ tickets are £48 (including camping). These prices are valid until 31st January. A booking form is attached and can also be downloaded from the website; purchase can also be made from the website via the WeGotTickets agency (with added booking fee). During the course of the sale of tickets for the whole weekend we will keep an eye on numbers and may choose to limit the total, because, if we are to grow, we want to do so in a controlled manner, so as to avoid dance venue overcrowding and manage the ability of the school and our caterers to cope at this our third event. The first draft of the 2024 programme is now on the website, but remember this will be subject to changes and additions, so keep an eye on it. We will also be updating other website pages, for example with respect to local Evesham info on restaurants, camping and other accommodation - when new info is provided by the Tourist Information office (at the moment they are sending out stuff dated 02/2022! We have had discussion with the school about feedback from this year’s event and they have already made improvements based on your suggestions. These include redecoration / refurbishments of some toilets and showers – more are planned but not necessarily in time for our event. Provision of better catering service(s) is in progress, and we will advise later on the menu options. Thank you for your continuing support for May Heydays and we hope to see you next year, 3 - 6 May. Keep well and best wishes The May Heydays Team

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MHD 2023 - brief update and 2x tickets/accommodation offer
by Announcements for May HeyDays 11 Apr '23

11 Apr '23

Dear Supporters This is to let you know that ticket applications for MHD 23 (weekend, day, evening) will be accepted via Agency, bank transfer, or cheque, if received by 21st April. Steward applications are now closed. You may be interested to learn that we now have a confirmed deal with a new caterer, Delicious Cafe-Deli-Bistro, of Evesham. Details will be on the website soon. For anyone still thinking about coming and/or worrying about accommodation, we have a couple who unfortunately cannot make it this year and would like to pass on their 2 Early-Bird tickets plus booked local Air BnB at cost (£239). Please contact: anneathome321(a)gmail.com. Anyone taking up this offer will need to let us have a booking form with their details on. Regards Monty Crook MHD Ticketing

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May Heydays mid-March messages
by Announcements for May HeyDays 12 Mar '23

12 Mar '23

Dear Supporters, (with apologies to all those who have already booked - who are getting this again - Monty used the wrong distribution list first time.... duh!) We are pleased to be able to tell you that preparations are going well. Lots of you have booked, so that we have added in a couple of ceilidhs for Saturday and Sunday evening, to prevent people getting crowded in the main halls. On the last day in January we had a bit of a hitch when, following illness and staff changes, the school caterers who ran the café in 2022 decided not to do it again this year. But, we have managed to find an Evesham cafe which does on-site catering for events such as ours and they are busy creating a menu for us. They’ve have had a look at the school kitchen and are happy to proceed, though with a few details still to be sorted out. The menu and choices will be similar to last year but we have to be aware prices may rise a bit, especially considering the national food inflation. With these caterers, we are again doing our best to try and reduce queues around the meal times, which may entail pre-ordering, particularly on Friday night and for main meal items. There will be a separate D.I.Y. salad server, and we plan two tea/coffee stations, one to be run by stewards or other volunteers. As a number of people have already asked, we are opening day ticket sales as of tomorrow (or as soon as the booking forms get loaded on the website…). The countdown has started in earnest and we are all very much looking forward to our second May Heydays. Please respond to director(a)mayheydays.org.uk or tickets(a)mayheydays.org.uk Regards Mecki and Team PS: You may like to know that your Director is even now actively working on the line-up for 2024, Friday 3rd to Monday 6th May - put it in your diary!

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May Heydays 2023 - January update
by Announcements for May HeyDays 30 Jan '23

30 Jan '23

Dear Festival Supporters, You may be pleased to hear that we have already received more bookings for this year - one day before the end of the Early-Bird phase - than we had total ticket sales for the 2022 festival. So, all those of you who came and enjoyed last year obviously went home and spread the news about it. Thank you! And we're not done yet. There is one day left to buy at the Early-bird rate (£97, go for it!) and then full weekend tickets will be available at £115, plus evening and full day tickets will go on sale from April 1st. Also, a few steward bookings can still be accepted. If you have a look at the programme page on the website, you'll see that we have expanded quite considerably on last year's programme, and we may yet add extra evening dances if we feel that would be advantageous. While the programme content is pretty much fixed, individual workshops may still be swapped around, so please don't print the programme until the last minute. If you scroll down below the programme spreadsheet, you'll find workshop/dance descriptions. We are still adding to those. We WILL print out a few programmes and descriptions to be displayed at the festival and put them up in strategic places. Callers' training programme: David and Kathryn Wright still have spaces on these excellent workshops; you can join too, if you contact Mecki before 1 March. There are advanced preparations to be done, so please don't leave it until the last minute! we know a few people have said they will help with MHD doing the preparation of the teas and coffees during breaks; if this was some time ago or you would now like to offer, do let us know (or remind us) so that we have a clear idea of who we can call on before the event gets underway. We would also appreciate some offers of ‘village hall size’ teapots…. Looking forward to a buzzing festival! Mecki and team Please reply to this via: director(a)mayheydays.org.uk or tickets(a)mayheydays.org.uk

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News from the M.H.D. coalface
by Announcements for May HeyDays 06 Jan '23

06 Jan '23

Dear Supporters Thanks to all who responded so well to our last announcement in mid-December, upping E.B. bookings by 38% and maintaining ‘newbie’ levels at about 24%. But, way to go, folks! I don’t know about you, but I hate it when we manage to miss the ‘early-bird treats’ from such as Chippenham, Sidmouth or Lichfield, so this is our last reminder to get your booking forms in soon. Money needs to be in our bank - or cheques in my hands - by midnight on 31st January (special deliveries accepted!). After that, Weekend tickets are £115 and steward tickets £57 each. And we still need more stewards.... Now, words from our sponsor: Where are all you budding callers? Remember David and Kathryn Wright will be organising caller training sessions again this year, so if you want to brush up your style and have a chance to call a dance or two for a festival audience, get your names to Mecki: director(a)mayheydays.org.uk. Likewise, there is this year's Original Contra Dance competition, with space for a few more entries - see https://mayheydays.org.uk/rules23.html. This event went very well last year when the dance style was Playford - come on, you Contra lovers, step up to the plate! A lift needed: We have one performer coming in from Rumania and she will need picking up from Birmingham on Friday 28th afternoon and returning to the airport on Tuesday 2nd at 9am. Anyone booked or planning to book who thinks they could help, please let us know and we will sort out a deal w.r.t. to ticketing or petrol money. Best wishes Monty & Mecki, The MHD Paired Office Sharers.

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Tickets and associated tittle-tattle...
by Announcements for May HeyDays 14 Dec '22

14 Dec '22

Dear Supporters I’m pleased to report that Early-Bird tickets sale are going well, with a quarter of those booking being first timers to Evesham. But, we have over 100 of last year’s happy dancers and a few roll-overs still to re-book, so we are very hopeful that there are a lot more pending attendees out there who are still holding back - maybe until the festive season is over? So, a reminder that the E.B. ticket price of £97 lasts until 31st January, and then weekend tickets will be £115 each. At the same time, a Steward’s half-price ticket goes up from £48 to £57. Also a plea to get your E.B. ticket request in as early as you can and not leave it to the last moment, ‘cos there’s only little old me to process them all! Probably better not to rely on postal applications either, the way things are. By the way, steward applications are a bit low at the moment, so do remember that stewards are very much needed for a successful festival, we will likely need more next year if we take over doing the tea/coffee refreshments from the caterers. Plus, it is a good deal, since the work-load is not excessive…… Cheers, Monty- MHD Ticketing Over to the boss……… We now have a few entries to our Contra Dance Competition, but there is space for more. All the rules are easily to be found on the website. For those who would like to take part in our callers’ training, please let me know soon, so that David and Katherine can start the ball rolling. Those are my reminders for now. More in the New Year. Mecki - and don’t forget to enjoy the festive season!

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May Heydays update
by Announcements for May HeyDays 06 Nov '22

06 Nov '22

Hi everyone, Today's good news is that the government has announced an *extra* bank holiday next year 'to celebrate the Coronation', rather than moving ours! Hurrah! We're safe for 2023 - so, Friday 28 April to Monday 1 May it is! This year we judged the very enjoyable Playford Style Dance Writing Competition. We had eight entries which fitted nicely into the two-and-a-half hour slot. Disappointingly, no entries for next year's Contra Dance Writing Competition have arrived yet. What are those of you who write dances doing right now? We know you are out there! The rules can be found here: https://mayheydays.org.uk/rules23.html . Anyone can enter! As every year, we will be doing our caller training again. If you are a budding caller who would like to hone your skills and call for a festival audience, please send an email to directorayheydays.org.uk, and your name will be passed on to Katherine and David Wright who will do the training next year. Bookings are going well, but we're getting the impression (from conversations we've had) that we'll have a lot of last-minute bookings at the end of January.... Do have pity on our Bookings volunteer and help spread the load a bit! We will be sending further a reminders! Best wishes, Mecki Testroet, Director Monty Crook, General Dogsbody -- Tel 01308 423 442

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"Keep the May 1st 2023 Bank Holiday" - the petition is now published
by Announcements for May HeyDays 17 Oct '22

17 Oct '22

Dear Supporters It appears I jumped the gun in sending out the news of our petition to keep the May 1st Bank Holiday next year. But, it is now published: – “Keep the May 1st 2023 Bank Holiday on that date and not move it to May 8th” Click this link to see the petition (and maybe start sharing it): https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/625155 If you feel like supporting this, many thanks, Regards Monty MHD Ticketing

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