I am writing this email to Berkhamsted Cricket Club and Berkhamsted Raiders and, as you may know, I am one of a happy team of 8 volunteers who are putting together the 'BerkoFest' music and comedy festival for the Berkhamsted community which takes place on 15th September this year.

We are intending that this event will be a sell out event that we hope will become a regular feature of the Berkhamsted social calendar looking ahead.  We are a not-for-profit event which aims to plough back any profits (after costs are met) to local good causes, two of which are Berkhamsted CC and Berkhamsted Raiders.

To help us make the event as successful as we intend it to be, we need people on board to help on the day.  We met with a representative from Herts Constabulary last week and he was very impressed with our event organisation thus far and our desire to ensure that the event is run as safely and professionally as possible, given that we are all volunteers.

I have been given the job of coordinating marshals and volunteers on the day.  We need a minimum of 30 marshals on and around the site, at any one time, for the duration of the event, which runs from 11am to 10pm.  Anyone who would like to volunteer to help may email me on the address shown above and I will contact people in due course to schedule in time slots that are convenient to them to help and to give them the relevant information about what the job of a BerkoFest marshal entails.

We need people to come forward to offer to help us with marshaling, for a minimum 4 hour shift (which can be split into two lots of 2 hrs if needs be).  The main areas we need help in are traffic management and the stewarding of the punters.  We must ensure that we have marshals directing traffic at key points on the approach to the sports club site at Kitcheners and for keeping the crowd on site safe during the day.  We also need help with litter picking, glass returns to bar, and other related jobs to keep the festival site safe and clear at all times.

We are employing a security firm to deal with the overall site security, on the entry gate at the start of the festival, for handling any incidents that may arise, and for dealing with instances where we are required to 'stop and search' festival goers (for example if we believe they are trying to bring alcohol on site).  We have a duty of care towards our volunteers and I would like to reassure you now that we do not intend that any volunteer will be subjected to any incident or circumstance which could be potentially difficult to deal with.  Our volunteers and marshals will be acting in an advisory capacity only and will not be required to deal with incidents as such.  All marshals will be issued with high visibility vests and an event ID to make them recognisable to members of the public at the event.

As both of your organisations have been identified as recipients of donations from any of our profits, I would like to ask you if you would be able to send a message out to your supporters/parents/coaches to ask them to consider coming forward to help with the marshaling of BerkoFest.

I cannot stress enough how critical it is that we have enough marshals, volunteers and helpers on the day.

The support of both Raiders and cricket club supporters is very much appreciated and we hope that together we can all make BerkoFest the event it deserves to be!

Kind regards.

Karen

Karen Buchanan-Harlow