A human castles team in Quebec?

The Castellers de Montréal have been building human castles for eight years, and thereby promoting Catalan culture and traditions in Quebec. We were one of the first human castles teams to be formed outside Catalonia, and we are currently the only one in North America.

Our team is made up of around fifty members, and is set apart by its multiculturalism: in addition to Catalans and Quebecois fans of Catalan culture, we also have members from Lebanon, Mexico, Uruguay, Argentina and China!

To date, we’ve put on eight presentations each year, taken part in major cultural festivals and held multiple workshops. This year, we achieved our first 4 de 6 - six levels of four people each - and we want to keep climbing higher. But we can’t do it without you.

It’s not easy to run a human castles team almost 6,000 kilometres from Catalonia, and at -20 below zero during the long Canadian winters, but the Castellers de Montreal is a team full of optimists. We know our goals can be achieved; we only need to make a small effort to get there.

This year, we have a challenge, and we want your help to overcome it! We want to grow - in skill, in confidence, and in number. We want to keep climbing higher.

Our goals

This year, we want to grow in number and strengthen our constructions. We want to increase the team’s visibility, and to achieve this, we’ll require the financial means to print posters, pamphlets and other kinds of publicity.

Growing the team will also require us to purchase more shirts and faixes, and more helmets for the kids. Safety will be of the utmost importance as the team gets bigger, but we don’t yet have the proper equipment. We’ll need a mat for when we train indoors during the winter.

We would also like to purchase a tabal to accompany our gralla - these are the instruments that are traditionally played while human castles are being built. We are lucky to have an excellent gralla player among us, but there’s no one who knows how to play the tabal. We hope to be able to train one over the coming year and would like to purchase an instrument for him or her to play.

If we exceed our original 4000€ target, we will be able to purchase merchandise to sell during our presentations, spend more on promotional materials, pay part of the rent for our winter practices and purchase more equipment for the team (shirts, faixes, gralles, etc.).

What we plan to do with your contributions

4000€

• Invest in promotional materials to increase the team’s visibility

• Purchase shirts and faixes

• Purchase safety equipment: helmets and a mat

• Purchase a tabal (and a second gralla, if possible)

6000€

• Purchase more embroidered handkerchiefs, buttons and other merchandise.

• Pay 3 months of gym rent for our winter practices.

• Purchase a second gralla.

8000€

• Pay the rent for the whole year!

• More promotional materials to build the team’s visibility.

• More shirts and faixes for new Castellers.

The rewards

In return for your contribution, you can choose to receive buttons, handkerchiefs embroidered with our logo, limited-edition t-shirts in any size, or even an exclusive poster of the colla, signed by all the members!

Projected timetable

October 4: Launch of the campaign on VERKAMI

November 3: End of the campaign

November 14: Order placed with a Catalan business

December 14 to January 1st: Order shipped within Catalonia

January 7 to 20: Order received in Montreal

Visit our website:

castellersdemontreal.info

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