Shake and Stir is a not for profit community festival in Southbourne, Bournemouth. We are in our 6th year and we have grown from a small event to the second largest free festival in Bournemouth, after the Airshow.

We are funded entirely by generous sponsorship from the Coastal BID, The Brewhouse and Kitchen, Conker Gin, Homeline Mortgages and Steele Raymond Solicitors to name but a few and we could not out on our event without their support, year on year. However as the event has grown, so have the costs, and sponsorship, which used to cover everything, now covers just under half of the total costs.

The rest of the cost is raised by shaking red donation buckets, through our annual raffle, and through income that we generate from the Traders who take pitches in Fisherman's Walk, and on a wing and a prayer!

None of us are paid to put on this event. We do it because we love it, and we love seeing the whole of Southbourne smiling, coming alive and having one of the most fun filled weekends of the year. Through Shake and Stir we have been able to put on other events such as Frankenfest at Halloween, and our Christmas jollities. Everyone tells us how much fun they have and it is really our pleasure bringing everyone together and putting on the show.

We are also all about supporting our local high street and the independent, quirky traders that we have up and down the road. Southbourne is now one of the strongest trading districts in Bournemouth- we have a reputation for putting on fun, professional, free events and we believe this is to everyone's benefit- Southbourne has very few empty retail units, and those that are empty don't stay empty for long. Footfall figures produced by the Coastal BID show that we are bucking the National Trend and we hope that this is due, in a small way, to the efforts of the community, and the traders in coming together and showing people how it is done.

We have put this page together in order to ask you if you can spare any cash to help us fund this year's event, and in order that we can start planning (in September!) for next year's event with a little money in the bank, so that we can make next year's event a roaring success, just as this year's event is set to be.

If you can donate anything from £1.00 to the sky is the limit we will be very grateful- we want this event to stay free, so that everyone can enjoy it- we believe that selling tickets will ruin the vibe, and also goes against what we believe in- the Southbourne community and high street. Please help us to do this!!

You are all stars.

Thanks for listening

Fiona, Mandy and the Shake and Stir Team