10th Birthday Celebration A Success
Despite the wet & cold weather on Friday and Saturday the Kilcoy Wood, Wine & Art Festival 10th Birthday Celebration was a success. Crowd numbers were down on the Saturday but Sunday with less wind brought the people through the gate, which was ably manned by the Kilcoy RSL members. This years Festival was a culmination of new events, workshops, demos and hands-on creative experiences. Over 70 stalls provided a wide variety of creative & very individual handcrafted products for Festival goers to browse, buy and try. Wood was well represented this year. Gary Bochow brought his Beenatree Milling operation from Conondale to give sawmilling demos. The chainsaw sculptor enthalled the crowds with his craft, raffling off the eagle he had created . FD Hardwood Furniture of Tiaro had a magnificent display of large furniture. Lazy Larry made his Festival debut with an excellent range of handmade chopping boards, lazy susans, wine tilts & serving trays. Woodturner Dennis Donnelly of Cooroy had a great display. Local Bevan Peters had slab timber for sale and old favourite Jim Marshall, The Rocking Horseman was back. Various local crafters demonstrated their talents and provided small projects to do. Three local wineries gave tastings and sold their excellent wines. Lots of delicious food & coffee was available with the Lions’ Club selling out of BBQ foods on Sunday. Thank you to all the wonderful stallholders and hardworking volunteers for sticking with the weekend despite almost being almost blown away and rained out. The helicopter flights had to be cancelled due to the conditions.
Kilcoy Lions Club volunteers working on the BBQ
The Festival began early on Saturday with a Fun Run organised by Jayne Curtis and Wendy Smith , starting and ending at the Festival. Another early starter was Landcare’s Small Property Planning Workshop organised by David Matthews. Workshopping was the order of the weekend and despite the low crowd numbers on Saturday the workshops were well attended. Pastels in the Art Pavilion with Tony Zammit. The Uke Dukes ukulele lessons were popular, with several attendees purchasing a ukulele to continue their ed-UKE-ation. Bill Cameron is available to return to Kilcoy for additional tutoring. The Big Star Circus Workshops returned to the Festival giving many children the chance to improve on their circus skills from last year. The Big Star Circus visited both Kilcoy & Mt Kilcoy primary schools on Friday 9th to give a short performance and inform the pupils of special workshops at the Festival that allowed attendees to put on their own Circus Show at the end of the Festival. All the Festival workshops were made possible by funding received from the Regional Arts Development Fund. The Regional Arts Development Fund is a Queensland Government and Somerset Regional Council partnership to support local arts and culture.
The Uke Dukes entertained & ran ukelele workshops as well.
Roushini’s Bollywood Fun & Fitness was great fun and high energy with several bellydancers joining in. Thank you to the girls and Laine, the drummer for adding colour to the weekend. The Official Opening was delayed but the Somerset Singers filled in the gap with their lovely voices and the SEQld Disc Bowls Competition was brought forward. Thank you to Jane Gilbert and the Fun Rovers Club for organising and running this and the SEQld Wine Tossing Championships and to Peter Rice for once again designing, making and supplying the beautiful trophies for these events.. Mayor Graeme Lehmann officially opened the Festival and cut the birthday cake made by Coff & Co Bakery and later awarded trophies. After Festival close time the evening activities started in the camping area. A delicious Campoven meal prepared by Kylie Chambers and her Kilcoy Kindy team and cooked by Jamie Retschlag and off-sider Bryce Tinney was served. Many thanks to Rodney Kunde for providing the windbreak so the food could cook. The Campfire Concert ,MCed by Harold Alford , included Jack Drake with his humorous and serious bush poetry. The Julie Paris Flashback Duo, the Uke Dukes and several Kilcoy Unplugged members entertained also. Campfires helped to keep concert goers warm.
Chainsaw Art sculptures at the Festival
Sunday morning dawned with the inviting aromas of the Kilcoy Lions Club BBQ Breakfast and the ever popular Poets’ Breakfast featured bush poet Jack Drake. The day progressed with an increase in crowd numbers with the decrease in wind speed. The inaugural Kilcoy Classics On Wheels drew a large number of entries. Richard White, Fiona Moorhouse and the KCOWs volunteers put on a well organised event that will be on again next year. Workshops were again will attended and Roushini demonstrated Indian Cooking getting people to join in rolling out pastry for, and cooking the Samosas that were served with a simply made, but tasty Tomato Chutney.
Roushini's Indian Cooking Workshop
Then it was time for the Circus Show out on The Green. The children had work shopped both afternoons of the Festival and really showed their skills to perfection on the last afternoon. Make-up and costumes on the show included dance, magic, bungy & trapeze, plate twirling and acrobatics and the Grand Finale of the Human Pyramid a fitting end to a great Festival weekend.
Many thanks to Di Fogarty and the art students of Kilcoy High School for the terrific visual display they designed & created showing the 10 year history of the Festival. This display can now be seen in the shop window next door to Landcare in Mary St, Kilcoy . Thank you to Ron & Margaret Duffy for making this space available.
Thank you to everyone who helped in the slightest little way to make the 10th Birthday Celebration of the Kilcoy Wood, Wine & Art Festival a success. We’ll do it all again next year. Please leave your comments about this Festival at www.woodwineart.com.au.
Marg Cortis Festival Co-ordinator
Photos courtesy of the Kilcoy Sentinel