Massive carnival

Saturday night saw the curtain drawn on a massive two weeks for Horsham Greyhound Club.

During the past 14 days the club has presented four race meetings with feature races including the Group Two Horsham Cup and the Sylvia Penny Memorial Final on Saturday night.

Sylvia was the heartbeat of Horsham Greyhound Club for more than 30 years in which she dedicated herself as a volunteer. There was no job Sylvia didn’t try her hand at during her time at the club, and this is the reason the function centre is named in her honour. It was fitting that on the night of Sylvia’s Race the club could follow her theme of giving back by presenting 13 community grants to Wimmera organisations and groups, something of which I’m sure Sylvia would have been proud.

Representatives from almost all of the 13 organisations attended the night and between races club manager Justin Brilliant and president Ian Bibby presented the cheques to each group. Originally slated as a $10,000 project, the response was simply overwhelming and unfortunately the club couldn’t approve all of the applications, but did stretch the budget out to $14,000. We see this as a great investment back into our community.

With the overwhelming success of the project, the club will look to do a second round of grants sometime during the next six months and encourages those unsuccessful on this occasion to re-apply. The club could not have wished for better conditions on the night, with warm balmy conditions and the live music of Aaron Murray playing between races. With children playing mini golf and jumping on the bouncing castles it was the perfect finish to the carnival.

The club raffled off two major items, a $500 EB Games voucher and a $1200 Webcon Marine package. All patrons could enter via a QR code on entry and all persons following the club’s Facebook promotion of the event were entered into the draw.

Over the coming weeks the club will be featuring individual grant recipients to shine a light on their projects.