By Mikayla van Loon
Get ready to prepare a picnic as live music makes a return to the Montrose town centre with a new project from the Township Group.
The Picnic in the Park concert series was made possible with a grant from the Urban Community Recovery Committee and will see local artists take to the stage as a way of reconnecting with people and place.
Montrose Township Group member and one of the people behind the events Jo Carland said as a committee, they are passionate about providing a thriving community experience for its residents.
“Covid was a time when we really saw people coming together in different ways and looking after each other and this is just a follow on from that,” she said.
“Through engagement with our community, we’ve looked at what our community values are and one of our priorities is individual and collective health and wellbeing.
“Getting people together and creating connection, which is what people missed over the last few years, is why we thought, ‘let’s do something fun for our community’.”
By receiving a grant for the recovery committee, Jo said the two planned events will be free to the public, with a BYO picnic to enjoy amongst friends or family in the hope people will support local business and food outlets.
Choosing to host live music over other possibilities was about encouraging that health and wellbeing vision for Montrose because it is so powerful in bringing people together.
“We all like music on the committee. We thought about things that would be fun and interesting for us, and if we like this idea then the community is going to love it because the committee is made up of mums with families, older generations, it’s got a mix of people in different areas,” Jo said.
Giant lawn games will also be on offer to help keep children entertained.
The purpose of the community recovery grants scheme was to allow communities who had been impacted by the 2021 storms and Covid heal, come together and connect with each other.
“The grant specifically was about how to help our community recover from the June 2021 storm. It affected a lot of people in Montrose as it did up in the hills, particularly those who were out of power for a few weeks.
“There are still families recovering from that period of time, on top of just the fatigue of Covid and this year, everyone’s back doing normal things, people are so busy and tired.
“This is free, there’s no financial pressure on people, when people have already probably had that these last few years and it’s getting people back outside into nature, to listen to music. It’s got all the feel good things.”
The grant has enabled Montrose Township Group to fully fund two events, one on Friday 18 November which will see The Isosceles play and the second to be held on Friday 16 December which will see Caitie + Ko perform.
While so far the interest and response has been positive, Jo said the Township Group would be using these two events as a trial to see whether they are worth pursuing perhaps next year.
