Drouin saves Ficifolia Festival
Drouin’s Ficifolia Festival has been saved.
An urgent call out to community members to step-up or risk the festival folding paid off last week at an annual general meeting re-run.
A new committee, to be led by Jess Murphy of Warragul, now has its sights setting on delivering the 30th annual festival next year.
Jess said she heard the Ficifolia Festival was struggling to have a committee so she and her partner decided to attend last Thursday’s meeting.
“I grew up in Garfield and we always went to the Ficifolia Festival.
“It is such a great event so it would be a shame for it not to run,” she said.
Jess, who works in management, figured she had the skills to put her hand up for committee president and take on the job to ensure the festival was saved.
Jess said it was an exciting time for the festival.
“Ninety per cent of the committee is new so we will have some fresh ideas and some exciting new ideas.
Jess said the committee would discuss some of the ideas over the coming months before releasing details of the 2018 festival.
The festival adjourned its annual general meeting last month when it was in serious danger of folding if new people did not come forward to help.
Outgoing president Vin Bibby was rapt with the response last week.
He said it was a successful meeting and great to see so many people willing to take on jobs and ensure the festival continued.
“I called for nominations and people put themselves forward,” he said.
“The Drouin Ficifolia Festival has experienced 29 years of providing fantastic entertainment to Drouin and the surrounding community.
“It has enjoyed great patronage whereby thousands of people have immersed themselves in the events and activities offered every February in Drouin.
Mr Bibby, who has been involved with the festival committee since its beginning, took on president last year to help out. But, he said he was not in a position to keep doing the job.
Mr Bibby will continue in an “advisory” role to help the transition with the new committee.
Baw Baw Shire council should turn its focus to the lessons it can learn from the now abandoned plans to run the Utopia Pet Lodge and jointly operate an animal pound at the site, according to the shire’s ratepayers and citizens association president.
Pointing out that the association had not met since the council decision to close the pet lodge and that he was stating a personal opinion, Geoff Anderson said he was pleased with the outcome.
“I do not support pouring good money after bad,” he said.
But Mr Anderson’s main point was the need for council to learn and ensure similar mistakes are never made again.
He said a good start for the council would be to instruct its staff to learn the meaning and intent of due diligence.
“Clearly, the exercise cited as due diligence in this fiasco was far from being of any use,” he said.
Mr Anderson believes another “myth” that needs airing is the term commercial-in-confidence.
He said some information needed to be treated in confidence during negotiations but once they were completed “commercial-in-confidence” had little purpose than to hide facts from councillors, the public and other government bodies.
“I know that not all facts in this exercise are in the public domain and I believe it unlikely that all have been placed on the council table,” Mr Anderson added.
He said successful operation of the pet lodge was unlikely when it was taken over by the shire with council staff that, under their award, got three hours pay at penalty rates for a 30-minute call-out.
Baw Baw Shire bought the previously privately-operated Utopia Lodge last August for $1.2 million with the aim to establish a new animal pound there and subsidise its costs with profits from the boarding facility.
Council said that from September when it took over until the end of May the pet lodge had run at a loss of $59,000.
It will now redevelop the lodge facilities for use as a stand-alone pound.
Council should learn from Utopia “mistake”