THE organisers of a long running charity fundraising event have announced that it is to come to an end due to a lack of volunteers.

Romanby Gala has been held in the village near Northallerton, North Yorkshire, for 27 years and donates all its profits to local charities.

But after years of trying to encourage locals to come forward to help plan and run the event, organisers say they have had enough and there will not be a gala in 2010.

A meeting will be held on November 24 to discuss winding up the organising committee, which is a registered charity.

Chairman Larry Ward said: "The committee decided at out last meeting that we should terminate the gala because we didn't want to go through another recruitment campaign.

"This is it - the gala is finished. We've been trying for the last three or four years to get more volunteers and we think we've done enough."

The gala is often well supported by locals on the day, but years of wet summers and the cancellation of the fancy dress parade due to the costs of having to close the roads have made it harder to gain sponsorship to fund the event..

The gala allows local charities to hold stalls on the village green as a way of fundraising, and the profits from the gala as a whole go to charities from the Romanby area, which this year included Bereavement Care, 1st Romanby Guides and the Herriot Hospice.

Mr Ward said: "It is a village and family event which there are not many of any more. It just seems to be the same four or five people who pitch in every year to run the thing and we are all getting older and have other commitments and other things we want to do now."

The situation in Romanby is being mirrored in nearby Brompton, where organisers of the village carnival have also appealed for more volunteers to come forward, or risk losing the event altogether. The meeting to discuss the closure of the Romanby Gala will be held at the Station Hotel, on Boroughbridge Road, in Northallerton, on Tuesday, November 24 at 7pm.