Jammin’ Thoughts.... It’s now been a whole week since the Oxjam Darlo takeover. And I’ve pretty much spent the last week in some withdrawn state wondering what the hell to do with myself since it’s been such a large part of my life! Anyway, we finally announced our fundraising total for last Sunday, a staggering £4224.58 was raised! Just W O W - how amazing in this town? - I love it!
Again, thank you so much from the whole of the Oxjam team for attending, being one of our acts, allowing us to use your venue, volunteering your time & being a local business who helped us out! We literally couldn’t do it without you.
Anyway here is my observations of the day...
Rain Doesn’t Dampen Our Spirits The weather last Sunday was bloody awful. There is no getting away from the fact that it was a dark, cold, wet Sunday night in October. I’m not doing to lie, I did have some initial doubts when setting up the venues earlier in the day (especially when rain was literally dropping off my fringe!) that the whole event was going to be washout. However the whole of Darlo proved me wrong; what an amazing turnout, I was completely overwhelmed with the sheer volume of people who came out to support the event. I definitely think a highlight (and when I eventually relaxed!) was seeing the whole of Avalon jam-packed full of people singing along to Ocean Colour Scene’s ‘The Day We Caught The Train’ performed by the wonderful, Ordinary Affair made me realise just how successful the day was!
Our Oxfam Shop Rocks You may find this hard to believe, but some of the Oxjam takeovers across the country don’t work alongside their local Oxfam shop. That’s why at Oxjam Darlo, we are extremely lucky to work alongside such a supportive shop! On the day of the takeover, the shop acts as our base for people to collect tickets, info and for the event volunteers to gather. The festival literally couldn’t take place without this amazing team of people and to top it off they even dressed up as KISS on the day to inject some humour into the event! The Oxfam Darlington team also helped us with our advertising efforts beforehand; by doing a cracking job of promoting the festival, not to mention creating a pretty impressive window display before the main takeover event - you all rock!
We’re A Pretty Talented Bunch I am certainly not talking about myself in this point but the amazing local acts who performed at the takeover. ‘cause my god, there is so much talent in this town, I am only gutted I didn’t manage to get around more stages as I heard some really good feedback! I did manage to pop my head into The Keys which was hosting our ‘hip hop’ stage and was totally taken back by the performances! Hip hop is not my usual bag but I was totally amazed by the sheer creativity on display and found it hard to tear myself away. Again, a massive thank you to all the acts who took time out to perform for us, we loved having you.
Kindness Is At The Heart Of Our Community Of course, Oxjam Darlo takes place so we can raise vital funds for Oxfam to enable them to help those most in need in the UK and overseas. The profit from your ticket sales go straight the cause, however I couldn’t believe the amount of people who also very kindly popped some change into our fundraising buckets and purchase our Jammin’ Ale (I heard the Quakerhouse literally sold out within a hour or two!) I was also completely overwhelmed by the amount of people who were coming up to members of the Oxjam team thanking us for putting on the event, the kindness was off the scale! Thank you so much Darlo, you’ve helped us raise an amazing amount for Oxfam! The main Oxjam Darlo Takeover will be back in October 2018, keep an eye out on the festival’s social media for details of smaller fundraising events during 2017!