Report on the Future of Cowley Road Carnival

There are exciting developments afoot for Cowley Road Carnival following a wide ranging report on the best options for the ongoing future of Oxford's largest community-run event. Since its beginnings in 2001 the Cowley Road Carnival has been a significant element of the wider regeneration programme for the area run by East Oxford Action. However, with the regeneration programme now coming to a successful end and East Oxford Action spinning off its more commercial activities as separate companies, the East Oxford Action board commissioned this thorough report from independent consultant, Danielle Battigelli, to look into the best ways to take this popular community event forward into the future.

The report is downloadable here

The report found widespread support for the event and came up with a number of options for the future. The preferred approach is for Carnival to be run by an independent charity, which is to become a dedicated events organisation. Cowley Road Carnival has been funded from hard-won grants and sponsorship from supportive organisations such as BMW, Oxford City Council and the Arts Council, and one advantages of the charity is that it will be able to access more types of funding than have been available up to now. The East Oxford Action board had secured funding from the Arts Council for the development of the charity which, over the next four months,will be used to put in place, the administrative structures that are needed to attract the necessary funding and to run successful events in the coming years.

There are already plans for an event in July 2009, but the exact form this will take will be dependent on the funding available, timing and public support. An interim board is currently working on this, but there will be a need for more people to get involved.

East Oxford Action's Company Secretary Zoe Brooks commented “The most important job will be to recruit a management board and more volunteers from the different local communities, who have the skills and commitment to manage and deliver the Carnival for many years to come.

People interested in following the latest developments or reading the report can visit the Carnival blog on http://cowleyroadcarnival.blogspot.com/

Paper on Carnivals and Regeneration

A paper written by Zoe Brooks for East Oxford Action on Carnivals and Regeneration is now available for download - Carnivals and Regeneration - EOA Information Sheet 8

The paper was written to support last year's DTA conference at Oxford Town Hall, which had Carnival as its theme. The paper uses the lessons learnt from the Cowley Road Carnival and covers, positive branding, economic development, CSR, community cohesion, community involvement and educational benefits.

Carnival Video

As part of a Heritage Lottery-funded project East Oxford Action commissioned a video of the Cowley Road Carnival 2008. The whole project explores the different cultural traditions of carnival in the communities of Oxford, especially the Polish, Czech, Brazilian, Albanian and Trinidadian traditions.

The video interviews local people about the Carnival and what it means to them. You can see it and a slideshow of the project exhibition on http://www.vivacarnival.net/

2008 Carnival - A Great Success

Despite the rain over 20,000 people turned up for the 2008 Carnival. Here are some of photos of the day.

Czech Carnival Musicians - Masopusters. A great hit with the ladies!



The giant puppet skeleton created by local artists in a workshop by Mandinga.


Spirit of Cowley Road Giant Puppet


Another skeleton.


Oxfordshire Bangaldeshi Association's tiger.