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WALLINGFORD'S best-loved events will become a thing of the past unless people are prepared to buckle down and help organise them, residents have been warned.

Appeals in the past for more people to come forward to help organise events have fallen on deaf ears - and now many organisations are at crisis point. This year, the town's charity fun day has had to be cancelled and the BunkFest cut down in size because of a lack of helpers.

All the service organisations which put on events are seeking younger people to join them to help keep events such as the pancake race, Thames Run and the carnival operating. Town councillor Mike Mold said: "Everybody loves going to these events, but fewer and fewer people are willing to help.

"And the organisers themselves are getting older and less capable of doing the heavy work."

He said: "I foresee that in a few years' time there will be little in Wallingford's annual calendar because there will be no one willing to stage them."

Mr Mold said the charity fun day, at which charities in the town man their own stalls and raise money for their causes, which was scheduled for July 20, had had to be cancelled.

He said he hoped it was only a postponement of the event and it would be back next year, but only if more volunteers were found to operate it.

Last year, the BunkFest which takes over the town with folk music, singing and dancing had to be cancelled, although a smaller version of the event was put on. This year, only the smaller version will again take place.

Wallingford Lions, who run the pancake race and the raft race, said they only kept going because of help from other Lions clubs, including Thame, Abingdon and Wantage, to provide the manpower.

For the Lions, Anthony Church said: "We are all getting older and there are few younger people coming in to take our place and do the necessary work. It is a worrying situation."

Rita Kemp, who is involved with the BunkFest, said: "There are too few people willing to help. At all these events, it is the same people wearing different hats."

Sinodun Rotary's new president David Caswell said one of his main tasks this year was to recruit more people to help with the vast amount of charity work that Rotary did.

Even the town's Rotaract group - Rotary-sponsored but for people aged between 18 and 30 - is short on membership and needs help.

New president Sally Wooldridge said: "We'd love to see more young people from the area join us."

Mr Mold said: "This situation should be of great concern to all event organisers. We are facing a difficult future unless volunteers come forward to fill the gaps.

"Once these committees start to disband the events they organise will disappear forever and Wallingford will be infinitely the poorer.

"It is not scaremongering, it is happening now."

1:00pm Friday 11th July 2008

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