General Manager’s Log – March 2016

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Greetings, All –

We get the odd enquiry from time to time that goes something like this: CALLER: ‘Great festival, really enjoyed ourselves, well done.’ AWBF: ‘Thank you, glad you liked it, thanks for coming.’ CALLER: ‘I suppose you’re happy it’s all over.’  AWBF: ‘Yes, whole crew is looking forward to a little breather.’  CALLER:  ‘So what do you do for the next two years?’  AWBF: ‘Oh, you know, this and that. Sweep the floor. Pay a few bills.’ CALLER: ‘Half your luck, mate! Bit of a doddle, eh?’  AWBF: ‘Yeah. That’s right.’  The truth is a little more involved than that and it’s around now that we see the carefully laid threads start to wind into strings and the strings wrap together into ropes and pretty soon we start hoisting the scenery into place.  The Australian Wooden Boat Festival is produced by a lot of very hard-working people, from an all-volunteer board of directors to the hundreds of wooden boat owners who are beginning to think about getting their boat ready for the next festival, now just eleven months away.  In this issue, we’ll have a quick look at what goes on behind the scenes at the AWBF.

We were happy to hold the first Member’s Meeting of the AWBF for 2016 and proud to mark it with a presentation of Life Membership to Cathy Hawkins, Andy Gamlin and Ian Johnston.  These three friends came up with the idea of a festival just for wooden boats back in 1994 and have been associated with the event ever since.  Board members Graeme Hunt and Chris Palmer have made a job for themselves, drumming up new membership and adding value to the relationship between AWBF members and the festival.  We’re happy to see new members signing up for what was once an by-invitation-only association.  If you are interested in getting involved and you’re willing to support what the AWBF does, you’re encouraged to get in touch and let us send you a membership pack.  Just call the office on (03) 6223 3375.

Also in this March issue, some useful tips on how to improve your chances of getting your boat into the next Australian Wooden Boat Festival.  We always have more applications for water berths than we can possibly accommodate and we know that missing out on a berth can be extremely disappointing.  Entry is competitive and our selection panel has a very tough job to do, but every year we see some lovely boats miss out because of avoidable mistakes.  Every boat owner wants their boat to look its best – and that starts with your application, so check out our top 5 tips to make yours shine.

You will have heard by now that AWBF will be working with the Mawson’s Huts Foundation to present the Australian Antarctic Festival in September (8-11) 2016.  this is an exciting project that will open up Australia’s Antarctic industry to the wider community, including public tours of the Class 1A icebreaker Aurora Australis.  We’re recruiting volunteers for this four-day festival now.  If you have an interest in learning more about the Antarctic and Australia’s important role in protecting and understanding that amazing continent, this could be for you.  Just drop us a line at office@australianwoodenboatfestival.com.au for details.

There’s plenty of news about friends of the AWBF, from award-winning photographers to Sea Scouts learning shipwright’s skills and our Chairman, Steve Knight, off to the Netherlands to gather support for Dutch involvement in 2017 festival.  As always, if you have a good yarn or an event to tell us about, we just need the words and the pictures – if it’s of interest to the wooden boat community, we’ll help you reach around 4,000 active subscribers to the AWBF Newsletter.

Paul Cullen, General Manager[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]