Press Releases
KYNETON DAFFODIL & ARTS FESTIVAL NEWS
March 2011
Kyneton Daffodil & Arts Festival to celebrate Golden Heritage
Kyneton’s Golden Heritage will be celebrated this spring with the Daffodil & Arts Festival Committee choosing this as its theme for its 39th consecutive year.
Festival activities will commence with the traditional bulb sales and sausage sizzle on Saturday March 12 from 9am to start the fundraising for this great series of events at the beginning of September.
The Festival Committee’s Eric Scoble said that the show quality daffodil bulbs planted in home gardens involves everyone as part of the Festival making great garden displays and brings visitors to Kyneton each year.
This year as in other years the Committee have managed to obtain an excellent variety of daffodils and will sell them for the low price of .60cents each.
Watch for Eric Scoble and his trays of bulbs in front of Woolworths. The community notice board near the Post Office will soon display future sale dates. For orders phone Eric and Janet Scoble on 5422 6454.
Eric will be able to transport the bulbs to and from the street in a brand new covered trailer gained with a grant from the Federal Government’s Volunteers Grant Scheme. Along with the trailer the Festival Committee were also successful in gaining funding from the scheme for a market tent for use as a shelter for bulb sales, sausage sizzles and at the Festival.
Secretary Marg Dearricott said that the Kyneton Daffodil & Arts Festival will take place as usual in the first two weeks of spring commencing on the 1st and concluding with the Grand Parade and the Fair on Sunday 11th September.
“People wishing to be involved with the Festival or Festival Committee can contact me on 5422 2282” she said.
15th April 2011
Navvies in Kyneton Re-enactment
The 1861 Kyneton Navvies Revolt will be re-enacted on Saturday August 6 this year to celebrate its 150th anniversary and as a pre- Kyneton Daffodil and Arts Festival event.
The Re-enactment activities are being organised by the Daffodil & Arts Festival Committee, the Kyneton Historical Society and Tony and Marisa Leahy, owners of the Albion Hotel.
On August 3 1861 hundreds of railway line construction workers commonly called navvies from near and far who were working on the line being built from Melbourne, congregated near the site of the current, but then not built, Kyneton Station, protesting at their pay being reduced from 7 or 8 shillings to 5 shillings a day with no pay on days when frequent wet conditions prevented work on the track.
The navvies or ‘turnouts’ marched down Mollison St stopping at the newly built Albion Hotel, removing the Hotel’s Union Jack to take with them to their confrontation with 100 police and militia assembled near the Junction Hotel, now the site of Best & Less.
The confrontation was resolved without serious consequences for either the navvies or peace keepers.
The August 6 re-enactment will be followed by a bush dance at the Albion Hotel when tables will be cleared so that there is plenty of room for dancing.
With the Bush Dance taking place close to the usual time of the crowning of the Festival Royals, this year the Festival King and Queen and Princes and Princesses will be installed during the evening.
The Historical Society will also launch its history of the Revolt on August 6.
The Theme for the 2011 Kyneton Daffodil and Arts Festival “Golden Heritage” fits the re-enactment perfectly.
The Festival, the Leahys and the Historical Society are hoping that as many people as possible will wear period costume to be part of the re-enactment, the bush dance and in the Festival Parade held a month later. Cash prizes will be given for the best costumes.
During the Festival in the first week of September the Albion Hotel will also conduct a dinner to celebrate the Hotel’s 150 years.