A HUGE contribution from local businesses and enthusiastic crowd have turned an entertaining community night out into the final touches for the Dunrobin Hall’s roof revival project.
Initially planned as a purely social get-together for the community after two years of pandemic restrictions, The Festival of Small Halls’ appearance at Dunrobin on Thursday drew massive financial support from across the district, creating a huge fundraising effort for the hall.
Festival of Small Halls is a series of tours that takes the best folk and contemporary acoustic artists performing at two of Australia’s largest festivals and sends them on the road to the tiny halls in some of the smallest communities, all over the country.
After a seeing a story about the festival on ABC program, Landline, the committee contacted the festival’s promoters and just before Christmas, got the green light as a host of this year’s Autumn tour.
On Thursday, more than 80 residents from across the region booked a seat to see local performers, Robyn’s Music School’s Hannah Munro and Sarah Crowle in the opening act, before Charm of Finches, consisting of Melbourne-based sister duo, Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes and singer/songwriter, Jack Carty, lit up the stage.
Mr Carty, whose family originates in south-west Victoria, co-writes with the likes of Josh Pyke and Katie Noonan and has toured Australia, the UK, North America, Europe and New Zealand, but said he was excited about touring regional Victoria after previously taking the Small Halls tour through Tasmania.
“There’s some really beautiful countryside here and great people in the small towns,” he said.
The hall committee’s Julie Robins said the Dunrobin community was overwhelmed with the district’s support leading up to the event and the enthusiasm of the crowd on Thursday night.
We had people from Strathdownie and lots of other small communities around the district, who came to see this great show … everyone had a lot of fun and the performances were just outstanding
Dunrobin hall committee’s Julie Robins
“We had people from Strathdownie and lots of other small communities around the district, who came to see this great show … everyone had a lot of fun and the performances were just outstanding,” Mrs Robbins said.
“A massive thank you to everyone who put their hands up to support us and everyone who turned up on the night … and our emcee, Joey McArlein, who did a magnificent job keeping everyone entertained.”
She said the hall’s upkeep was vital, as an integral part of the Dunrobin community.
“Halls are the central meeting place and point of contact for communities like ours, like Strathdownie, Henty, Wando Vale and the roof replacement is a project that we’ve had on the agenda for quite a while,” Mrs Robbins said.
“We’ve been lucky enough to receive a couple of grants from the Glenelg Shire Council which replaced the roof on the supper room, but the last couple of years we haven’t been able to fundraise.
“We got enough sponsorship from our incredibly generous local businesses to cover the cost of the performance, so the raffles, the food sales, all of those proceeds take the roof replacement fund to completion.”
