The Personal Touch
As we look to the future and building the River Summit and Festival concept, we can’t help reflecting what has brought us to where we are now and the like-minded community that is growing. There have been many magical steps that led to the UK River Summit at Morden Hall on May 21st 2024. I am a firm believer in destiny and fate and that if you follow your heart and trust your gut while adding a huge amount of hard-work, you can achieve many things.
Pictured: The first River Summit & Festival in France, 2022
Not everyone will know that the original event, The River Summit and Festival, was hatched in 2022, in the mediaeval village, Chalabre, where three rivers meet in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Our aim was to create a celebratory event with art, music and a fire-cooked feast of local, seasonal produce accompanied by an educational aspect. And so the River Summit and Festival was born. We held a summit of international speakers in the morning, including Fish Legal’s Penny Gane and an afternoon and evening of celebration including music, poetry and an art exhibition. It wasn’t without it’s challenges – the main one was the language barrier and we had to provide translation sheets. However, it was spontaneous and magical and touches such as using my parents old armchairs for the panellists seating, a huge trout painting donated by local artist, Julie Smith and having our own beer made by local brewery, BDQ Beer Co. made a huge difference.
Pictured: The first River Summit & Festival in France, 2022
It was always our intention to bring the concept to the UK and in June 2023 we held the first UK River Summit on the banks of the River Test on the Orvis Kimbridge Beat. The day was really informative and enjoyable. With the location, there was a natural focus on angling and chalk streams and our friends at Hunter Gather Cook prepared a wonderful wild food lunch naturally accompanied by a Lakedown Beer.
The first UK River Summit & Festival , 2023
On reflection, we wanted to attract a more diverse audience and bring together a wide range of stakeholders while also encouraging further creative expression. Dr Lewis Campbell called with some great feedback and suggested the River Wandle – a stroke of genius. Now, we needed to find a venue. I emailed Morden Hall, a beautiful Georgian mansion surrounded by the National Trust owned Morden Hall Park. They were so amazing and said they would love to support the community with this event and offered us a preferential rate.
This was hugely appreciated as at this time, we had made the decision to fund this ourselves if need be. What followed was a magical few months of collaboration, inspiration, generosity, conversation and discovery. The River Wandle weaved its magic spell over us as we contacted all the local community groups we could find and started to uncover the huge range of stakeholders invested in this extraordinary urban chalkstream. The energy and connections continued to grow and we tried to stay true to our values of inclusivity, independence, celebration and collaboration.
To be continued…..