Kingston Market House Festival

Making Assets Work, The Quirk Review of community management and ownership of public assets (2007) recommends handing over some underused publicly-owned assets to community groups that with a bit of help could make good use of them, to the benefit of all - just what the Market House Festival was about!

A Blitz Café is a focal point in a community. It is run much like a Citizens Advice Bureau but with the emphasis being on environmental issues. All the Blitz Cafes will offer advice from a qualified individual or individuals and networking for the community – local services, notices etc. - but each café will be highly individual, tailored according to the needs of its community.

These come and go, so this section is a history of initiatives, currently live ones at the top,

Kingston's latest cultural asset. The Market House Festival welcomes the new theatre and hopes that participants in the Festival will visit the theatre - and vice-versa.

If you enjoyed any of the discussions during the Festival, you might enjoy this legacy of the Festival, starting in September 2008.

CREATIVE YOUTH is a charity born from The International Youth Arts Festival (IYAF) which was established in 2008 with the ambition to create a festival of national importance, showcasing youth arts (5-26yrs) of the highest quality. In five years we have made considerable strides in achieving this goal. In late 2010, the charity changed its name to reflect the year-long programme of work we now undertake, culminating and celebrated in the annual International Youth Arts Festival.

A festival of story-telling taking place in Kingston each June.

A community consortium aiming to get community space into the sadly neglected and unused Grade-2-Listed former Post Office in Eden Street, Kingston.

The borough's annual imaginative Festival of Ideas returns in 2008. The 2008 programme runs from 3 March to 3 April, and aims to stimulate fresh ideas and arts activities that illuminate some of the issues of the day.

Kingston's annual celebration of good writing runs from 23 April to 23 May in 2008, with the usual impressive programme of writer appearances and discussions.

The Market House Festival was made possible by the support of the RSA and the sponsors of the Coffeehouse Challenge, Starbucks and T-Mobile.

Find out more about the Coffeehouse Challenge 2007 here. The Coffeehouse Challenge is about getting local people to come together over coffee to talk about community issues they care about and to take action for local change. Where Coffeehouse Challenge ideas develop into projects, the RSA, Starbucks and T-Mobile offer a share of over £20,000 in awards to help some of the best initiatives get off the ground.