An autumn full of festivals? for Moffat

A NEW autumnal festival celebrating community spirit is coming to Moffat later this month.

Developed by Make/Change Collective, the very first ShareFest is a week-long celebration of sharing, skills, and community spirit running from Sunday 28 September to Sunday 5 October.

At the heart of the festival is a brand-new local resources map — a creative, community-built guide to the skills, spaces and stories that make Upper Annandale strong, with each event of the festival reflecting the skills and groups featured on the map. Explaining more Jane Gray, director of Make/Change Collective, said: “The map is a way of making visible the generosity and resourcefulness that often goes unnoticed. We hope it becomes a practical legacy — helping people find what’s already here, share what they can, and imagine what’s possible for the future.”

Highlights of the festival include skills share sessions at Moffat Men’s shed; and a ‘strapped for cash’ workshop at Studio Moffat where attendees will explore alternative ways of meeting their needs from time banking to skill-swaps and mutual aid.

Cat Major, the graphic artist co-designing the local resources map, added: “It’s exciting to turn the generosity and creativity of our area into something visual. The map isn’t just information — it’s a piece of community art that will keep growing as more people add their stories and ideas.”

The full programme for Share Fest can be found at: www.ticketsource.co.uk/makechange.

Crime writing capers on the cards

MYSTERY and intrigue are coming to Moffat next month for the first ever Moffat Crime Fest. The one day festival on Saturday October 4 will be showcase the works of authors from the area as well as powerhouses of the genre with panels, competitions and an authors dinner. Co-founded by Claire Black of the Moffat Town Hall Redevelopment Trust and members Moffat Crime Writers group May Rinaldi and Fiona Quinn, the festival brings the best bits of similar events right to the heart of the town, May explained: "We were at a fellow author's reading event and we got talking to Claire and we were both of the same idea that it would be really good to run a festival in Moffat. Our first thought was to have it be a weekend but after looking at our resources, funding and timing we decided for it to be a one day event. "It's all based in the town hall and the library and our side of it was bringing in the authors in with some really big names coming to Moffat to be part of it." [caption id="attachment_62738" align="aligncenter" width="511"]

READ ALL ABOUT IT . . . festival co-founder Claire Black[/caption] For its first outing a lot has been packed in to the festival's debut with 12 authors taking part in discussion panels each with their own theme including a panel exclusively for authors from Moffat and the surrounding areas, May continued: "We chose 12 authors taking part all together and some of them are Claire's favourite authors, some of them are members of Moffat Writer's Ink and some are writer that we know from other events." Fiona added:"Because of our experiences of going to other festivals we've picked out the things we like best and have managed to squeeze it all in to one day. "We're covering a wide range of genres in crime from historical, paranormal, police procedural and others. "We've got an authors dinner, where each author will host a table and the people who come along will be able to sit with the authors, have a chat as well as having a meal. So it's going to be a full on day." With preparation for the festival well underway, this week May, Fiona and fellow author Ann Bloxwich lead writing sessions at Moffat Academy to inspire pupils taking part in the festival's short story competition. 200 students from primary age up to S3 have been challenged to write a short crime or mystery story and both Fiona and May are excited to read what the pupils come up with adding: "They're really keen and they ask a lot of questions which is good. "We've spoken to them a little about different crimes there are, we don't want them all to be about murders and we spoke about characters and what makes them likeable and unlikeable. "Overall we want the stories to be engaging and make us want to read on." For more information about Moffat Crime Fest visit the festival's website.