"It really does just get better and better!"

What a delight it was to overhear such comments as I walked around the festival last year. From the festival opening with Booty & the Beatz on Friday evening, right through to the events and fun of the Sunday your enthusiasm for this event does not falter.

The Salmon Trust exists to provide excellent facilities for young people. We have everything in place to start building just as soon as we can. Your support for the events of this festival weekend is helping us to achieve this. Thank you very much.

Despite always offering unfailing support for the event, Group Captain Brett Morrell (the Regional Commandant) has changed his mind after eleven successful years. As a result the formal involvement of the 863 Air Cadets and those of surrounding squadrons has been withdrawn on the grounds that the event is a distraction from core air cadet values. This has been a great disappointment given that the event has been a springboard to offer our cadets advantages and resources that many squadrons can only dream of. Nevertheless, it being a Diamond Jubilee year, we have taken the opportunity to rethink a few things including the location of the event. We are grateful to Thurston Community College, but have found almost identical facilities just a few hundred yards away at the Thurston Rugby Club grounds where we have been made most welcome and the logistics of the event have actually become far more simple. We are very excited about this new partnership which I am sure will help us all achieve our aims in providing and promoting excellent community togetherness and co-operation for all ages.

While the Friday and Saturday events are unchanged, the Sunday has been shaped to combine the very best events of the traditional Air Fair with a Grand Jubilee Picnic and fun family olympic games where we hope as many of you as possible will rest your glasses in favour of some good old fashioned games.

Why not come along and see what you have been missing?

Brian Pettitt
Chairman, The Salmon Trust