Heads of ocean festival considering event's future

Heads of ocean festival considering event’s future

Barwon Heads' Festival of the Sea might not return following COVID-19 as long-time volunteers count the cost of dwindling volunteer support. Photos: SUPPLIED

BARWON HEADS’ Festival of the Sea could have had its last coastal celebration, with committee members to meet next week to decide the event’s future.

An extraordinary general meeting on Wednesday (October 5) will determine if and how the festival would continue due to the pandemic wiping out the past two annual events which resulted in a decline in volunteer numbers.

The community festival had run in March each year from 2000 to 2020 to celebrate Barwon Heads’ connection to the ocean with art, music, food and children’s activities.

Festival of the Sea committee president Jon Duthie, who has helped organise the event since its inception more than two decades ago, said the festival needed more community support if it was to continue in 2023 and beyond.

The festival has been a popular family event at Barwon Heads in its 20-year history. Photos: SUPPLIED

“The festival started in 2000, and it was a community-driven event and had lost of volunteers,” Mr Duthie said.

“Over the next 20 years it did some really fantastic things; it changed and morphed, evolved, devolved.

“It’s a celebration of our connections with the sea and of the lifestyle, environment, culture and history. They’re important things to celebrate in the community

“We just became a bit of a victim of COVID, we were struggling a bit for volunteers before that.

“In 2018 and 2019, the committee was quite small, but we still managed to stage an entertaining festival, then 2020 and 2021 were wiped out.

Festival committee members Mark Rodrigue, Geoff Waite, Jon Duthie and John Tunn. Photos: SUPPLIED

“Like so many other festivals and events, the impetus just runs out a bit and resurrecting it becomes an even harder thing to do.”

Mr Duthie said the event would require fresh faces on its committee if it was to continue, and hoped new volunteers would put their hands up at next week’s meeting.

“The festival has a great history and has done some amazing things, there’s great memories in there,” he said.

“It would be great to create some new ones, but you can’t keep having a community festival if you don’t have broader community support.

The festival’s EGM is at Barwon Heads Bowls Club from 7pm on October 5.