Country-loving Lyall calls time
Lyall Wheaton has stepped away from his beloved Horsham Country Music Committee.
Mr Wheaton’s resignation last month ends a 16-year involvement with the group.
Mr Wheaton joined Horsham Country Music Committee in January 2007 and was later appointed Horsham Country Music Festival co-ordinator. The first festival was in April 2008.
He has since served in all executive positions of the committee.
Mr Wheaton said events such as the festival, dinner shows and morning melodies at Horsham RSL had raised more than $100,000 – with significant support directed to the Wimmera Cancer Centre. This recognised the past and current members who underwent cancer treatment; three of whom lost their battles with cancer.
“In my working life, I managed organisations for 35 years – so organising and managing, to me, was in the blood,” Mr Wheaton said.
He said dinner shows and morning melodies at Horsham RSL would continue. The last festival was in 2019. “There’s an enormous amount of work put in to run a festival – it’s basically 12 months in the planning,” Mr Wheaton said.
“We tried to rotate about 50 percent of artists each year and find and attract suitable replacements – and we generally got that pretty right and people wanted to come back.
“Because we had established a good reputation and name, people were more than happy to come.”
Mr Wheaton said the 2008 and 2009 festivals both ran at a loss.
“It took a few years to build a name and reputation,” he said.
“The only other festival to make a loss was 2020, when the festival had to be cancelled a week before the event because of COVID.”
The weekend-long festivals attracted about 1000 people to Horsham, swelling caravan parks and motels.
Mr Wheaton named artists such as Don Costa, Sandie Dodd, Justin Standley, Brian Letton and Kiara Rodrigues as personal favourites and highlights of the Horsham events, who also attracted strong crowds.
“We were given the privilege of holding the first event in the new Horsham Town Hall. It was a fundraiser for the Wimmera Cancer Centre,” he said.
“The artists were Kiara Rodrigues from Brisbane and Trevor Keilar from Warrnambool.
“The event sold out in a few days. A cheque for $17,500 was presented to the chair of the Wimmera Cancer Centre fundraising committee.”
Mr Wheaton was due to step away from the Horsham Country Music Festival in March 2020.
A new committee to oversee and run the festival formed in 2019 but has been unable to return the event yet, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.