Being a festival bouncer, running two popular festivals .... and performing herself.

They are just some of the pursuits which keep Jeanette Lynes busy and feeling as though she’s part of an extended family.

Over the past few years, Jeanette has juggled a successful business career too, even though it is clearly far removed from any of those activities.

One of those is being co-founder of Tiptree’s Little Scarlet Music Festival, in partnership with the village’s famous jam-makers, Wilkin & Sons.

Jeanette said: “I was already running a music festival at the Bull pub in Colchester quite a lot. For five years I ran a monthly acoustic night.

“I was also involved in the Colchester Free Festival and events in the garden at the Minories.

“I started doing an annual festival at the Bull called Bullstock.

“A friend of mine, Ian Thurgood, was ex-managing director of Wilkin & Sons. I was talking to him and he said ‘Why don’t you do one of your own?

“Between us we came up with this idea.”

The jam factory’s board agreed to stage the event and the first one was held in 2016.

Jeanette said: “I just thought it would be really a nice afternoon of live music for the local people.

“The idea was it would be a gift from Wilkin & Sons to their community, and a really good experience for younger people to be able to go to a proper music festival, maybe their first, in the safety of the area.”

The now annual event, set to take place on July 13 this year, features a main stage and busk stop for young performers.

Preparation for the event starts around seven months beforehand with Jeanette sitting down with managers at Wilkin & Sons.

It is Jeanette who books the bands and agrees the stallholders, but it doesn’t seem like work to her.

Her employed work is as a client manager at business coaching firm Stuart Allen.

She was part of a team which grew the business to international success over 18 years.

In her private life, Jeanette is also a performer who began singing in 2008 while recovering from breast cancer.

It gave her the drive to live for the day and after joining a choir she was hooked.

She has been a member of the Lady Bird and the Larks, one-fifth of the Significant Others and has performed with a number of other groups.

It is this talent which has seen her take to the stage at Mersea Island’s annual Cosmic Puffin festival, another event she is a key helper at although not as you might expect.

Jeanette said: “A few years ago one of the main organisers asked if I would be interested in helping out in a more practical way.

“He would provide the training and asked would I become a security officer – in effect, a bouncer.”

Once, while dressed for her role as a bouncer, Jeanette’s musical talents were put to use on the spur of the moment.

“I was walking around the side of one of the stages and they were struggling to get the sound system up and running.

“I just grabbed a guitar and microphone and I could sing while they were getting all the sound levels right.”

Both annual festivals raise thousands of pounds for charities including Colchester Hospital, Bliss and St Mary’s Hospital in London.

However, it’s not all about lively festivals for Jeanette, who has a 19-year-old daughter.

For some years she’s also been a volunteer for Colchester’s Warm and Toasty Club, a project which encourages older residents to meet up for company, refreshments and entertainment.

“I thought it was just a lovely thing,” she said.

“I just love these people, they fill this huge void. When you go and see these people every week for so long, they do become your family and not having parents and grandparents, I get so much from them.”

But with a paid job plus accountancy training, why does Jeanette do so much for others?

“I get something different from all of them,” she said. “I like festivals so I have one I make just how I like it and I am putting on a festival backed by Wilkin & Sons who have an ethos I like, as they pay for it for the community.”