Sunday 25 October 2015

"Warm Welcome to Winter in Eltham" - Eltham Arts Winter Festival nearly here!

One of the biggest arts and cultural events to hit Eltham starts next Saturday.

The Eltham Arts Winter Festival takes place from 31 October to 22 November at venues all over the SE9 area. This unique three-week community festival also includes an Art Trail of fabulous art which can be seen in and around Eltham High Street and surrounding areas.

Poetry, theatre, music, exhibitions, talks, quizzes and yes, a beer festival (!), can all be found during the Festival in SE9's cafes, shop windows, galleries, community centres, theatres and historic buildings. It all kicks off with a Halloween-flavoured opening event on Saturday 31 October at Eltham's Passey Place from 11am to 3pm.

I'm very excited to have been involved in this entirely voluntary initiative organised by Eltham Arts, a community organisation established in 2013 to promote the arts and led by its energetic Chair, Gaynor Wingham. So many people have contributed, from local artists of all sorts, local venues, local businesses and many other Eltham Arts supporters. We were delighted to have the tremendous support of the widely-read Greenwich Visitor local newspaper which has published the full Festival programme in its October issue with an introductory article by me.

You can download the full Festival programme at the Eltham Arts website, including details of the Art Trail, or pick up a copy of Greenwich Visitor at various venues (including the Eltham Sainsbury's).  Do also check out Eltham Arts on Twitter for updates, news and any changes.

In the meantime, here's an at-a-glance run down of the events which you can enlarge: