Why the Rafelder Kirm is only topped by the Oktoberfest

At the forefront of those involved in the Kirchweih are the members of the festival community (FGG) – without whom, Mayor Christian Keller also states, it simply wouldn’t work. Since 1995, the FGG organizational team has been ensuring everything runs smoothly, with changing members but a tried and tested tradition. The current team now brings together a total of almost 50 years of help. Christoph Hartmann has been there for 18 years, Walter Wegner has been there for 13 years, Oliver Werner has been helping since 2014 and Sabrina Müller has been there for five years.

The years of help can be counted, but not the many hours that four members of the festival community put into organizing Grafenrheinfeld’s largest festival every year. The four are driven by the desire to “bring the village together from young to old, from long-time residents to newcomers,” as Walter Wegner explains. According to him, being together is fun and shows the strength of the village community, which sticks together across all clubs to make the church fair and the community Thanksgiving parade an experience every year.

A classic, the children’s disco, is being revived

All threads come together at the FGG; this is where the operations of the 23 participating clubs and institutions are coordinated and where extensive preparatory measures are also undertaken. Music groups have to be booked, gigantic quantities of food and drinks have to be ordered, the tent set-up and dismantling have to be scheduled and the stand layouts have to be discussed in advance.

“The framework is in place, the FGG is happy to stick to the tried and tested recipes for success,” says Christoph Hartmann. Loyalty is maintained to suppliers and new ones are carefully selected; this also applies to the parish fair program. New this year is the reactivation of a former classic, the children’s disco, which takes place on the fair Friday for school children from six to around 12 years old with free entry and a free drink in the bar from 5 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

The responsibility is great, the mayor also says “it’s nice” that the fire department, the police, the public order office and the FGG are pulling together so well to meet all legal requirements. Big praise also goes to the community building yard, who unreservedly supports the festival every year.

A balance is drawn immediately afterwards

“After the fair is before the fair” is always the motto and so the experiences from a past fair are the basis for planning the next event. Immediately afterwards, the coordinators take an initial assessment of “what went down well and what needs to be improved”, and later the feedback from the helper groups involved will also be incorporated into the preparations when the prizes are distributed. These settlements are also handled by the FGG; the distributions, which have been consistently at a high level for years, are always eagerly awaited, as they form an important financial cushion for some clubs.

Every year, the FGG is proud and relieved when everything goes like clockwork and, as Oliver Werner says with a smile, the Rafeld fair is only topped by the Oktoberfest, as a delegation from China enthusiastically noted last year as customers of a Schweinfurter large company attended the fair.

The Grafenrheinfeld church fair begins on Friday, October 4th and runs until Monday, October 7th.