COMICS and cartoon characters will be the theme of this year's Cononley Scarecrow Festival which runs from Saturday to Monday.

Last year’s Cononley’s Scarecrow Festival was another successful event and gave a big boost to raising funds for the continuing renovation and development of Cononley Village Institute.

Since the extensive refurbishment took place to make the institute more user friendly, there has been a surge in bookings and the building is regularly used by the community.

The institute has recently been re-decorated and work has just been completed to improve the porch and emergency exit off the main hall.

Also on the cards this year is the installation of Wi-Fi and the committee is also researching options for the installation of projection facilities.

Julian Brown, festival organiser and chairman of Cononley Village Institute, said: "Each year the villagers of Cononley continue to surprise us with their inventiveness and the tremendous effort they all make to stage the scarecrow festival and that’s what makes it successful.

"Once again a broad theme has been chosen; this time it is ‘Comics and Cartoons’ allowing villagers to bring their favourite character or characters to life as a scarecrow."

During the weekend visitors can follow the scarecrow trail around the village, with a special mini scarecrow trail quiz to be found along the way.

Refreshments will be provided on Sunday afternoon and throughout the day on Bank Holiday Monday. To complete the excitement there will be the two duck races on Monday afternoon and various activities taking place in the institute.

There will be a £25 prize for the best scarecrow as well as two runner-up prizes of £15 and £10.

Everyone is welcome and scarecrow trail programmes will be on sale from Cononley Post Office, The New Inn, The Railway throughout the weekend and the village institute on Sunday afternoon and Monday only.