12th Anniversary of the Community Playground - Morwell

I had been approached through the Our Kinda County Club to help support a public function held at the Morwell Common the celibate the 12th anniversary of the Community Playground run Rotary, the contact person was Maria Harken. Good enough for me, I'll support anything Maria is involved with.

The original plan was for Francie Wait and me fill in a two hour slot: 10:00 am to 12:00 pm. We work out who played when we arrived. Then along came Plan B as Francie had been struck down by the a flu that is sweeping the area and was out of action. Simple, i'll just play the set out myself.
I showed up about ten minutes before 10:00, not a good look, but I had nearly arrived and realised I'd left my backing music behind yet again. So I had started out early in all good faith.

The sound system and stage were provided by the sponsors, so it was simply a matter of plugging in and getting on with it.

The event could be broken down into a few areas:

• Food.
  Lots of choices from sausages to fairy floss.
• Information.
  All of the local services had a presence: SES, Police Ambulance, Gippsland Water, etc.
• Entertainment.
  Jumping Castles, the Traralgon model train, face painting, a farm animal enclosure and more.

No one was paid, everyone was a volunteer.

I'd played up until 11:00 when Maria pulled me up and announced a drum clinic! Huh? Oh I see, Plan C!
I simply liaised with the drum group and we took hour turns at performing.

The drum group consisted of three core players: Steve Schultz and a two people out of bigger band called Tumbarumba: Mark Grunden and Neda Rahmani, they sure worked hard. Michael Dickson was in with them as well.
Mark organised all of the teaching of drum parts, while the Neda, while playing some drum parts was more involved in dancing and singing. Their effort was supported by lots of patrons young and old banging on anything they could lay their hands on. The event was particularly enjoyed by the children.

The highlights, musically were:

• Watching Neda lead a procession of people through the grounds in a Pied Piper sort of way ending up on the stage and banging and dancing away.
• All the percussionists ended up on the stage for the finale. Mark invited me to play along with them, that's a first.

Maria Harkin surprised me at times by singing a harmony part here and there. Most times I didn't know where she was, as she had a radio microphone and was mobile.

A great time was had by all.

There were two other major events being held in Morwell at the same time:

• AFL - NAB Challenge Match.
• Third Annual Immigration Wall of Recognition Multicultural Festival.

Initially we thought that would dilute patronage, but it sort of worked out, as with most people having a short attention span, they simply flitted between events.

Good catching up with Ken McMeekan and his wife as well as Greg Trevorow and his wife, all Rotarians.