Whilst numbers at our September 11 meeting were low due to quite a number of apologies we had a very interesting meeting.
Some weeks ago, I was privileged to attend on behalf of our Club the 100th birthday meeting of the Rotary Club of Ballarat Inc. The meeting was held in the same room at the Ballarat City Hall/Offices as was the inaugural attending in 1925.
Whilst at the meeting I was talking to PP Rob Glass and noticed that one of the government schools in Ballarat was listed on a pull-down banner as a community partner and asked Rob what was involved and he spoke of the partnership between a number of groups and SpringFest. Following the conversation, I asked Rob if he would be interested in in speaking to us and obviously, he agreed.
Rob attended our meeting after participating in the launch of SpringFest 2025, a project Rob has been involved with for 30 years as an initiative led by Rotary Club of Ballarat. SpringFest, a market in late November with 500+ stalls on Wendouree Parade around the perimeter of Lake Wendouree, has a unique business model. There are pre-identified community partners who are beneficiaries of the funds raised from stallholder fees and sponsorship. The current community partners are:
- Ballarat High School
- CAFS Ballarat
- Miners Rest Primary School and Kindergarten
- Phoenix P-12 College
In addition, a proportion of funds raised is devoted to community and international projects supported by Rotary Club of Ballarat. The organising committee comprises eight Rotary Club of Ballarat members, one event specialist and representatives of the four community partners.
A key feature in the event’s success is the attraction of sponsors of the likes of Optus, the current naming rights sponsor. Local businesses are prominent in the other sponsorship levels and there are also in-kind sponsors, who donate to the SpringFest raffle – another key feature of the event which helped keep it alive during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the raffle went online.
SpringFest is estimated to have raised more than $950,000 over three decades and each edition attracts 35,000 attendees. The many questions from members indicates serious interest in this event and how some of the organising principles can be adapted to our planned New Cycling Event (read more below), scheduled for the first weekend in September 2026.
Anthony Ohlsen
President