AND so, as the last notes of the eleventh Swindon Shuffle fade out into the ether, I thought rather than a standard review of the music it would be interesting to look at the ethic behind the event. After all, you either attended and can make your own minds up about what you saw and heard, or didn’t and therefore probably don’t care.

The Shuffle began around 15.46, or possibly nearer 4 o’clock, no one really remembers, and if cliché dictates that initial ideas were sketched out on the back of a cigarette packet, this was at least planned on the back of a serviette.

The idea of having a few bands playing back garden barbecue to raise money for a cause close to the organiser’s heart soon snowballed into a multi-venue, long weekend gathering – what the hip young things now term an “in the city festival.”

If it began with an altruistic purpose it also adopted a certain ethic right from day one; original bands only. The wisdom behind this choice has been debated, sometimes hotly, online and in the corner of pubs for the past decade, but the argument that in an age where, if only for purely business reasons, covers and tributes have become the more prevalent form, a yearly celebration of the town’s original roster is surely justified.

But it goes beyond just the choice of bands; the beating heart of the festival is the idea that it belongs to no one person.

Obviously the bands change every year, venues also drop in and out, the charities chosen vary; even those running it have changed over the years, giving the whole inner workings a feeling of community ownership.

The lines continually blur. You might be a punter one year, be playing the next, booking your own stage another, rattling the buckets, helping with kit, running sound and generally fulfilling any number of key roles. There is a job for anyone who wants it.

It is also a musical journey of sorts, with up to three main stages often running simultaneously, it is all about planning routes around the venues, or doing The Shuffle (the clue is in the name). It is this constant ebb and flow that keeps people moving and mixing, encountering the bands they have planned to see and stumbling across new future favourites, swapping anecdotes with friends and comparing musical notes with complete strangers as they queue at the bar.

This is not just an event. After 11 years of evolution the Shuffle has become much more than the sum of its parts and developed its own spirit, its own personality, its own soul.

So thanks to current custodians of the Shuffle, Ed Dyer and Paul Jellings, for another sterling job of bringing something amazing to this perceived cultural wasteland of ours (does anyone still believe that old line?) And here’s to year 12.