June 30, 2015
The South Burnett Wine & Food In The Park Festival committee is looking for a few new members.
The popular annual celebration of the region’s wines and foods is held at Memorial Park in Kingaroy on the second Saturday of March each year.
Ever since it was founded in 1998, the Festival has grown steadily to become the largest one-day event in the region, and a big money-spinner for the local economy.
Roughly half the 5000 to 6000 people who come to it each year don’t live in the South Burnett, but travel from Brisbane, Toowoomba, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay, Gympie and the North Burnett to take part.
The WAFITP committee held its first planning meeting for the 2016 festival in Kingaroy on Tuesday night, and decided while current membership was strong, it would be nice to bring a few extra people on board.
“A few of our committee members have been putting this event together for 15 or 16 years now,” committee member Nina Temperton said.
“At some point they’ll be stepping down from these voluntary posts, so it would be really great to have trained people on board who were ready to step into their shoes when this happens.
“Wine & Food In The Park is a big, complex event that costs about $80,000 each year to put on, so most people find it takes them at least one Festival to understand how it’s all put together and see where they can make their best contribution. That’s why this would be a great time for new people to come on board.”
Potential committee members only need a few simple qualities:
- An interest in local wines and foods, tourism, event promotion or event management
- A willingness to attend about eight hour-long meetings in Kingaroy roughly once a month between July and February, which are sometimes enlivened by wine and nibbles
- A willingness to contribute ideas about how to keep improving the event over time, and …
- Volunteering to help organise one small part of the Festival, either by themselves or in a team (eg: booking food stall-holders, organising tents etc – other committee members would provide guidance, contacts etc)
“Like any committee, the more people who are on it the less work any individual has to do,” Nina said.
“To date, most festivals have been put together by a committee of between 10 and 12 people. So it’s easy to see that if we had even six new members on board, everyone’s work would be cut in half.”
Potential new members are very welcome to attend the committee’s next meeting, which will be held at the South Burnett Enterprise Centre in Cornish Street, Kingaroy at 5:30pm on Tuesday, August 11.
They can also phone Anne on (07) 4163-6854 or Dafyd on (07) 4162-3899 for more information.
Great article and yes we are certainly keen to have enthusiastic and hard-working new people with fresh ideas – but Darren Schmidt is the current president and everyone on the current committee has done far more work than I! Credit where it is due :)