The Morris Federation launched a series of online workshops, talks and demos over Winter 2020-2021. For those who missed it, here’s the video of the first talk – Keith Leech and Fee Lock talking about Hastings Jack in the Green (1 hr 9 mins) in November 2020, and a review below.
“When I saw that Keith Leech was going to be talking about Hastings Jack in the Green as part of the Morris Federation Winter zoom series, I was intrigued to see how the festival had changed over the years since I had attended in 1986.
“Keith outlined the research that he had done both locally and into similar traditions further afield. He then described how he had approached the town of Hastings – both the council and the townspeople for permission to reinstate the tradition. After a successful first year he built on his successes together with a committee and the event grew. Now the event attracts several thousand spectators and this has meant a great deal more organisation is required – particularly to do with crowd handling, plus all the attendant events.
“The festival is a good example of starting small, winning hearts and minds along the way and growing into an established large scale event.
“Keith gave an interesting talk for about 40 minutes accompanied by a powerpoint presentation of pictures – both historical and current. Although there were a few technical glitches with the powerpoint, it was a well presented, interesting and informative talk with over 60 people attending.
by Jenny Everett, Treasurer, The Morris Federation
Donations from participants raised money for Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green (registered charity): www.hastingsjitg.co.uk.