The Summer Strum Hoylake is a not-for-profit community festival run wholly by volunteers from Merseyside's ukulele community. It is a celebration of music and wellbeing - the ukulele being universally reknowned as an instrument that spreads joy amongst players and non-players alike. It is a chance for ukulele players/bands to showcase their talents and meet like minded people and for non-Uke players to have a go, to connect with a local group and to simply see how playing with others promotes wellbeing.

Through fundraising like this, which pays for the festivals' infrastructure, we can continue to ensure there is no entry charge into the event and we are extremely keen to keep it that way - to be accessible to all. All we ask over the weekend is that people donate to the charities we choose to support that year via our bucket collections, raffles, workshops or by buying something from the many stallholders who set up shop at the festival.

We aim to raise enough funds through the year to pay for the marketing, stage, lighting, sound, seating and rain/sun cover - to make the festival the best yet. This will ensure that we have more to donate to charity at the end of it all - Wirral Hospice St John and Wirral MIND. In 2017 these two charities each received just over £1500 and we want to raise even more this year for these very worthy causes. We have also held Race Night and Winetasting Fundraisers (raffles supported Shelter and Clatterbridge Cancer Charity) and plan to organise busks throughout the community.

Please donate as little or as much as you can to ensure that this community festival can take place and to help raise as much as we can for charity. Support our events throughout the year - information via our Facebook page : Summer Strum Hoylake and Wirral Ukulele Orchestra.

Many many thanks

Emma and Pat (Festival organisers)