Council & Business
26 July, 2024
Event Strategy in Development
The Central Goldfields Shire Council is calling for community feedback on the recently endorsed draft Central Goldfields Events Strategy 2024-2028.
The draft, tabled at Tuesday’s council meeting, aims to improve the council’s ability to support community events.
The document states that “in 2023, Central Goldfields was home to 24 events each of which drew over one hundred attendees” including Energy Breakthrough, Redwood Carnival and Words in Winter.
Community feedback has identified key challenges organisers face when hosting a local event, these include:
• Attracting and retaining volunteers
• Navigating and adhering to regulatory compliance
• Reliance on council funding or external funding for the long-term sustainability of events
• The high level of effort and cost to plan and deliver events
According to Central Goldfields Shire councillor Grace La Vella, who introduced the motion to endorse the draft, the strategy will help council combat these hurdles.
“Increasingly the demands for council services, support and complex compliance requirements have made it clear that we need a structured approach to managing events,” she said.
“A strategic approach to facilitate our high-quality events across the Central Goldfields is required and [this plan] provides a road map for how we can deliver our festivals and events.
“It is very important that we reach out to others in the sector because we have got a shared common vision that is tourism.”
Fellow councillor Chris Meddows-Taylor agreed with Cr La Vella’s comments, saying that community planning will assist in building a regional profile for the shire.
“One of the good things about this strategy, which I have constantly championed for is the importance of working regionally because if people travel and visit events, they often plan a schedule of things that they might want to see,” he said.
“If our events can be part of other regional events, people will come to our events and other regional events.”
Cr Meddows-Taylor said the strategy enables a clear vision in supporting community events that align with council’s goals.
“One of the great things about this document is the opportunity for our residents to understand events better,” he said.
“Our role needs to be understood, we support events, we can help facilitate events, to the limited funding that we have we can help fund events which we do — but in essence, events depend on a small group of people who have the determination, resolve and a vision to manage and see events through.
“Events depend on the group of people who are willing to actually make an event happen and then council can certainly work with them and help.”
Community feedback on the document can be given through a council survey until Wednesday, August 7 at 3 pm.
Feedback will be considered for the final version of the strategy, which will be presented to council at their ordinary meeting in September.
To access the draft document, or to complete the survey, visit engage.cgoldshire.vic.gov.au/events