It was good to be back on two feet and return to a Rotary Meeting.
Certainly my experience with the COVID virus is that it is debilitating and even now that I have tested negative to COVID, I am still feeling lethargic and have little reserves of energy. Still whilst I was flat on my back, I was able to read some good and some fairly useless stuff. I shall leave it to you Rotarians to judge whether my Facebook story about Qantas flight from Melbourne to Brisbane via Sydney was the former or latter.
Last Saturday the Club looked after gates at the Tanunda Show. By all reports crowds were large, so Club members, friends of Rotary and a “guest” were kept very busy performing gate keeping duties. The Club will receive $1,200 for our services.
The Barossa Chapter of Make-a-Wish Foundation recently approached the Club to use our BBQ trailer. Their function was financially successful and in appreciation of its use, the Make-a-Wish Foundation have volunteered to assist at a Rotary function. Sue Graetz is very keen to accept their offer and would expect that Make-a-Wish volunteers will be drafted to assist at the forthcoming Rotary Airshow.
During my presidential year I have been encouraged by other service clubs, fellowship clubs such as Probus and other organisations assisting with Rotary activities. I believe that this is the way of the future; cooperation between service clubs and organizations such as Truro Op Shop and Great Revival Shop with which Rotary has long standing relationships is of great value.
I informed club members on Thursday about the disappointing response (I am being very diplomatic) from the Barossa Council to the Club’s community awareness programme. I do not want to be too much of a whinger, but the Council’s lack of support to a service club programme is appalling. However, not to be defeated, we shall pursue another avenue to implement the Flinders University Grant of $2,000 to fund such a project, now that the initial concept of installing banners is no longer feasible.
Rotary talk 16th March - Keith Millington
30 days to the Airshow.
Lots of work has been done, but still a lot of detail to do and not much time to do it.
Ticket Sales have gone crazy with close to $12,000 in our account with Ticketebo at lunchtime today. 65% said they heard about us on social media, 16% Word of Mouth,15% Family and friends, which leaves only 4% from other advertising. Great work by Isabel, our Tourism and Events Student and Samantha Eccles the video and picture developer.
Big news for the Airside from Steve Ahrens is The RAAF Roulettes will be with us and a P8 will do a low-level fly past. It will not land as it would need a 2 km runway extension. The P8 is the RAAF version of a Boeing 737 with a tad under 30m wingspan.
The Silver Sharks, the SA based formation aerobatics team have got a new program with an extra aircraft, making 4 planes in formation.
Lots of old favourites will be there. Chris Spirou, Warren Stuart and Lynden Trethewey will be doing their death defying flights, Jim Whaley’s Warbirds will be on show and the light aircraft from Gawler will show off their aircraft, one of which will be the ‘Rubber Ducky’ the little yellow aircraft with the lawnmower engine.
Lots more will be on show, but I would run out of time before I got to the end.
It is a massive job organising and recruiting our work force. Sue Graetz has done a terrific job in putting together a workforce to ensure we have enough people to do what is necessary. There is still room for more volunteers if you want to get into the Airshow for free. Terrific is a good word to use in this case as it has two meanings, 1 of great size, amount, or intensity, and 2 Causing terror. I think both meanings were appropriate at times.
Bill Simons, Bryce Lillecrapp and Mark Graetz are the Grounds organisers. Another job to which both meanings of terrific applies. Preparing the plans for the ground layout is only half the job; they have worked with the Barossa Council, Police, CFS, First Aid people, Barossa Hire, local residents around the Airfield and lots of other businesses to get all the permissions, road closures and redirections, and the ground facilities in place for the Airshow. They still have a lot to do and will be calling for volunteers to assist in putting up our roadside signs that contributed significantly to the 2021 Airshow and for people to tow our Advertising Trailer.
Sponsorship has been a headache this year for David West. In a year when so many of our local businesses are struggling with keeping their workers in a job, David has been knocking on their door and asking for money. Despite all the knockbacks, he battled on and has managed to get close to $30,000 in cash or kind for the Airshow. There is still some time left and David is not a quitter so he may get us even more.
Stalls and displays have been managed by Marie Rothe and Anne Schilling. You may think this would be easy, just ring the groups from 2021 and it is all done. This is not the case. Lots of new people want to be at the Airshow. Most of the previous stalls have changed in many ways, more people need power. The Displays have changed too: the RFDS fuselage will be there, so will the Jet cockpit that was so popular. Many of the aircraft stalls have changed. All this means that the nice tidy plan that Marie and Anne had for 2021 was thrown out of the window and they had to start from scratch to re-arrange the Displays and Stalls to make things fit for 2023.
Catering is managed again by Peter Perkins. The 2021 Airshow catering was a green field job as it worked in a completely different way to how St Jacobi did it. Peter has further developed the 2021 plan by increasing the number of vendors, re-arranging the layout to spread the crowd and making sure that each vendor knows what to expect on April 16th. The VIP and Pilots lounge will be managed by Zonta which takes a load off Barossa Valley Rotary people.
The Finance of the Airshow is managed by Treasurer Mark Graetz. He has produced a budget with regular updates so that we can keep track of the financial side of the Airshow. Some of the initial figures used were a little rubbery in that they stretched their values. As time passed by and more information comes to hand the figures are becoming firmer. Ticket sales are higher than the 2021 Airshow at this point in time which is indicating that we could beat the 3499 people we had previously. We are coming into the big spending period of the Airshow so Mark’s accounting will become critical in ensuring we spend wisely.
Promotion or Marketing fell to me when we could not get an experienced marketer to take on the job. I am not the best person to do promotions as I believe the difference between a marketer and a liar is the spelling. I had the assistance from Isabel Nietschke and Samantha Eccles. Isabel was one of our Uni Students who is studying Tourism and Event Management and she agreed to help with Facebook, Instagram and the other internet things the Millennials and Gen Z rely on. Sam Eccles is a school teacher who moonlights as the Facebook manager for the Tanunda Town Band. Sam has done some of her videos and photos for us and has also provided lots of valuable advice as to how to promote the Airshow.
We must have done some good as ticket sales are booming; we have sold 10 tickets in the time I have been preparing this talk.
At the end of every group, we usually get to Administration. Often forgotten or assumed as something that just happens of its own accord, but our Admin is Sandie Simons. No one can assume that Sandie just happens. Our Admin is kept in very good order, nothing gets missed and we get notified of due jobs; she picks up on things that have fallen behind and frequently manages to pick up on items that none of us had considered. When you realise, she is the Airshow Secretary, the Club Secretary, the Club President Elect, the Chair of BBBFM and is in PROBUS too you have to wonder how so much energy can fit into 5’2”
This is currently where we are now. We have 30 days to get everything else done.
Some of the jobs that need doing, not in any particular order, that need your help are:
Setting up the grounds. This will take from Wednesday 12th April to Saturday 15th and we will have Monday 17th to clear the grounds. We will have the help of the “volunteers” from Cadell but every able-bodied man and woman will be welcome. If you are not so able-bodied, you can still come but rest a bit more often.
Installing the Roadside signs at many locations in the Barossa through to north of Adelaide. Please mark on a map so we can find them after the show.
Towing the Advertising trailer around. If you are going to Bunnings, tow the trailer and park it prominently while you shop.
Installing the Scarecrows. We need 4 or 5 people to install the scarecrows before 25th March as that is the day judging starts. Someone with vineyard knowledge would be good to make sure we leave room for the grape machines to turn at the end of the row. Site is opposite the Jacob Creek Visitor Centre on BVW.
Collecting the straw bales to be used as seats at the Airshow. This will have to be done before 12th April so they are ready for the Cadell men to chuck about.
If you have any tools that we could use during the set up, (we have a power dropper knocker from Mark and a hand dropper knocker and a dropper remover from Robert) but if you have a device that would be useful and we could borrow it, please let us know.
