Tied with these feasts are a number of voluntary organisations which prepare feast decorations to adorn the squares and streets of towns and villages in Malta and Gozo, which imbue our summer evenings with colours and the most beautiful mechanical ground fireworks, which take care to spread the local musical culture, as well as safeguarding and strengthening traditional cultures in our country. In these voluntary organisations, one may find a nucleus of people who work voluntarily throughout the year to prepare activities related to the feast of their village or town.

The Council recognises the importance that voluntary Maltese cultural and social organisations have as regards the dissemination, safeguarding, and strengthening of cultural traditions in our country. This is all done on a primarily voluntary basis and, as such, in order to strengthen the work of these organisations, an artistic heritage scheme is being launched. This scheme is administered by Arts Council Malta within the Ministry for the National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government.

Voluntary organisations should be active in at least one of the following sectors:

• In instrumental music for the feast
• Health and safety in fireworks factories
• Semi-permanent feast decorations

The proposals should qualify as one of the following:

Proposals for instrumental music for the feast

• Musical teaching and training programmes aimed at musical tutors (surmastrijiet), assistant music tutors, and teachers.
• Proposals for investment in educational needs as regards extracurricular teaching.
• Innovative projects through which the society or organisation can expand its musical activities both in Malta as well as abroad, which activity should also be sustainable.
• Projects so that the society or organisation invests in technology and communication to have more modern structures (set-ups) for the benefit of its members.
• Restoration of objects/artefacts in their possession, such as paintings, musical archives, platforms, standards, old instruments, old furniture, etc.
• Strengthening of collaboration between band club societies as regards their band club members.
• Strengthening of internal administrative systems related to a society or organisation and their band club members.
• Strengthening, beautification, and restoration of existing infrastructure related to learning environments, those used for the execution of more professional musical acts, and/or in order to implement all this work in a more accessible environment.
• Implementation of sociocultural or musico-literary projects or programmes.

Proposals for healthy and safety in fireworks factories

• Investment in equipment and set-ups so that fireworks can be launched in more secure manner.
• Investment in machinery and tools which facilitate the manufacturing of fireworks and increase the security of its production.
• Investment in educational resources on health and safety in the manufacturing of fireworks.
• Investment in the infrastructure of fireworks factories.
• Restoration of fireworks factories.
• Strengthening of collaboration between local and European fireworks factories.

Proposals for semi-permanent feast decorations

• Design and manufacture of banners (bandalori).
• Design and manufacture of festoon lighting.
• Design and manufacture of cloth pavilions.
• Design and manufacture of lit pavilions (pavaljuni tad-dawl).
• Design and manufacture of artistic pedestals.
• Design and manufacture of feast decorations which are set up during feast days (this excludes the liedna).
• Investment in teaching and training related to the design and manufacture of artistic decorations.
• Cultural projects and activities.
• Social projects and activities.
• Restoration of every type of feast decorations which are set up in streets during feast days (these exclude the liedna)
• Statues set up in streets.