COMMUNITY spirit is something every small town and village claims to have, but rarely is it demonstrated in measurable terms.

In Malmesbury this week however, it showed up in the form of £20,000 worth of pledges in 48 hours.
The recipients were the popular and delightfully local Boondocks Festival.

The festival ran for the first time this year after receiving £30,000 in 30 days from the community in an online funding campaign.

The support for next year’s festival has blown the organisers away and really shows how passionate Malmesbury is about its local culture and community.

There aren’t many towns Malmesbury’s size that could muster that kind of financial support for an independent music festival, especially not so quickly.

One of the festival team told the Standard this week that the town has a sense of “ownership” of the festival, and this goes to show.

Residents are proud of what Malmesbury has to offer, and rightly so. They’re supportive of independent projects in the town and like to feel involved with them.

Boondocks is the latest, and perhaps most startling, example of this.

The festival belongs to the town and they’ll do all they can to support it and help it grow.

To help support the Boondocks campaign you can do so by visiting kickstarter.com/projects/boondocks/boondocks-2016