Sarau Festival stalwart passes the baton
A new set of hands is taking the reins of a popular Moutere event.
The annual Sarau Festival has been a mark on the social calendar of many since it was created by Jenny Leith in 2008.
After 11 years of co-ordinating the event, Leith is stepping down for ‘‘someone younger with new energy and ideas’’ to oversee the project.
Leith founded the festival in 2008 with the then manager of the Moutere Community Centre to promote the new hub.
‘‘We wanted to bring people out to see the community centre so that they knew it was available for hiring for weddings, funerals, birthday parties and celebrations of various sorts.’’
She said while it was ‘‘partly about exposing the Moutere community centre’’ it was also about showcasing the areas ‘‘amazing artists and food purveyors’’.
After more than a decade of delivering an afternoon of entertainment to the region, Leith said it hadn’t changed much.
‘‘It’s not very different – similar number of stalls, similar number of volunteers, similar number of people coming to enjoy it.’’
More than 4500 festival-goers attend the event every year to enjoy the festival vibes including entertainment, food and market stalls, a monster book sale and competitions.
The festival raises $20,000 to $24,000 annually which goes into the Sarau Trust and back into the community.
Leith said the funds had bought a lot for the community centre over the years, supported sports groups and given scholarships to people representing New Zealand in the Moutere area.
No longer growing fruit after 42 years, Leith said this was the first summer she wasn’t harvesting, which made her think it was the perfect time to resign from organising the festival.
‘‘I think it’s time we discovered what summer was about.
‘‘We’ll still be there ... volunteering along with everybody else. My husband and I hope to be very much a part of it.’’
Meanwhile the baton has been passed to Sam Lowe, the head coach of Tasman Gymnastics.
Lowe said she stepped up because ‘‘nobody else put their hand up’’.
In past years Lowe has run the Kidz Zone at the festival.
She said she used to supervise the bouncy castle, ‘‘now I’m organising the whole lot’’.
That is something Lowe intended to change.
‘‘I’d like to run it as a team rather than a one man band.’’
She also had goal of getting more people in the community involved.
‘‘We’ve got very few young men helping and it’s a bit of a shame.’’
She said there were older gentleman putting up ‘‘huge marquees’’ and driving in 200 waratahs.
Speaking of Leith’s hundreds of hours she put into the event every year, Lowe said she would be sorely missed.
‘‘I totally take my hat off to her, I don’t think I will quite fill her shoes.’’