The Hanwell Association of Traders were so proud of where they lived and its links with the legendary Jim Marshall, of Marshall Amplifiers, that they came together and decided to put on the Hanwell Hootie, a free music festival for the whole community.

The team had a tough job on their hands. Their plans needed a number of venues to host live performances, someone to make sure all the promotion and marketing of the event was taken care of and some money to make it all happen. But with passion and determination – they kept going.

They knew an event like this wasn’t going to be cheap – they had to get sponsorship to make it a success. After asking lots of businesses in the area they got money from Marshalls, two local ward forums and the leader of the council.

The council were able to help the team make sure that all the correct licences and safety issues had been covered for a public live music event.

As it is with an event like this – there was a lot to do on the day – but with people volunteering it made the job a lot easier.

Volunteers became roadies for the day, setting up for the bands and taking equipment from venue to venue; some handed out flyers and hosted an information stall about the hootie, while the rest helped run errands on the day to keep things running smoothly.

June Martin, one of the organisers said: “It does get easier as you get more people on board. In the first year we only had 2 or 3 people organising this event, but it was so successful that people assumed we had a huge team working on it. We had a much larger team this year, we expanded the event to include more venues and the number of people who came forward to volunteer meant we had to turn some people away.”

To keep up-to-date with what will be available for the next Hanwell Hootie, and to take part in the conversation go to http://www.hanwellhootie.co.uk/ and visit their Facebook site at https://www.facebook.com/TheHanwellHootie