Page 5469 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 16 November 2011
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The Weston Creek community will go without a festival next year after the ACT government declined to provide the event with funds.
The Weston Creek Community Council, who has taken over the management of the festival from Communities@Work, applied for financial assistance through the 2012 ACT Festival Fund.
Festival chairman Tim Dalton said the festival had requested $20,000 in assistance, but would have been happy if they had received $8000 to $10,000.
The Council was notified last week it would not receive any funding.
Mr Dalton said council members were stunned by the snub and council was left without the resources to hold the event.
“We needed some seed money to cover costs like insurance to make sure the event happen, but not one cent has been provided for Weston Creek,” he said.
“The people with the festival fund think Woden and Tuggeranong are good enough to give funds to, but not Weston Creek.
“The festival really brings the community together and we had some innovative plans for next year’s festival …
“It’s really bad that a core community event is being treated this way.”
Mr Dalton said the Government needed to rethink its priorities was it was prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars on a piece of public art in the Weston Group Centre but nothing for a community focussed event.
There is more in the article if you should choose to read it. As an example, if you see the Chronicle you will note that there is a photo on the front of it with me and Mr Dalton standing in front of that artwork. As we were standing there a car drove by and a woman leaned out of the window and yelled out, “We didn’t want that artwork,” and a few other expletives. It was remarkable timing. It was not staged, though it may have looked that way to the media.
We have all been to community festivals across Canberra. We had the Woden community festival just recently and a number of us attended, and the Tuggeranong festival is imminent. We all attend those festivals and recognise how important they are in building community spirit. I think the government does recognise that also. It has provided funding to support festivals.
In the press release rushed out by Andrew Barr yesterday I note that a number of festivals are being supported—the Corinbank festival, the Canberra carp-out, the Canberra harvest festival, the weekend of ideas and the Canberra international music festival. There is a whole range of those festivals. It includes the Woden Valley festival and the Tuggeranong festival. But there is nothing there for the Weston Creek festival, which is disappointing given that it has been such an important part of the community over years.
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