CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TEAM OF WINNERS

Hythe Twinning Association won the Class 3 section on the daylight parade and we were also overall winners of the Daylight event.

Notes from “The Boss” Kevin Howell

This year we wanted something bright and colourful and we hope you enjoy our final choice – The Magic Roundabout. This was a children’s TV programme which ran from the mid-60s to late-70s, based on an original French TV show. We couldn’t include all the characters but the main ones are shown here.

Dougal the dog leads the way, depicted by our lovely rowers, Mandy & Jude. On the float itself are Dylan the Rabbit (Simon), Mr Rusty (Kevin), Florence (Margaret), Ermintrude the Cow (Stan) and Zebedee (Michael). Can you spot Brian the Snail?

With recycling being this year’s watchword, we have managed to utilise materials from our last three floats. Café Renee (2013) proved to be a particularly good source of plywood! As usual, ideas which seem simpe to start with become more complicated when it comes to building them!

So as well as those previously mentioned, we must thank the others in our “design & build” team for the amount of effort put in and time given – John, Fred, Patrick, Hilary, Dawn, Jo and particularly Alan who made the five wonderful horses on the roundabout. All of this was only possible thanks to Margaret’s offer of the space to build the float as well as supplying coffee and Hobnob biscuits! A big thank you as well to those who have loaned us the power supply and music source. We really do appreciate it.

Have a great evening – we hope you whistle the theme tune as you leave. It will certainly be burned into our brains for weeks to come!!

Additional info:

Planning started in February with a meeting at mine for ideas. I don’t know who came up with the Magic Roundabout theme, but once it was mentioned it seemed to fit the bill – colourful, not complicated to build (at first sight!) and well-suited to our re-use of floats past, especially the rotating base. “The Magic Roundabout” mainly consisted of “35thAnniversary”, “Alice in Wonderland” and “Café Renee”!

A word about the horses – these were brilliantly made by Alan and were a “wow” factor from early on, being so much more substantial than we originally imagined. They really inspired us to do the best we could to give them a suitable roundabout to go on. You’ll be pleased to know that they have all gone to good homes.

As usual, there were moments when we had to change plans (Kevin, early on – “The roof won’t need to bear much weight, we’ll get thin plywood.”Kevin, one month later – “Hmm, we’ll have to add some stiffeners to that.”) and times when work had to be redone (just ask John & Patrick!) but we got there in the end and are all still friends. Much of the enjoyment of Venetian Fete is in the construction of the float and this year proved no exception. I’m guessing that Claudia might be finding more DIY jobs around the house for Patrick. John’s expertise with spots (on the mushroom of “Alice in Wonderland” and round the edges of the Magic Roundabout) means that he will get automatic selection if we do “101 Dalmations” next time.

Volunteers for 2021 eagerly awaited!!

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