Held last Saturday at the Brougham Arms Hotel - an amazing day full of great entertainment, workshops and if you were lucky enough to join us you would have heard the amazing voice of Sue Foley and Bhan Tre.
Report on the 2025 Winter Irish and Celtic Festival.
The Brougham Arms Hotel was preparing to run an event to celebrate Mid-Winter Irish Christmas and they had reached out to me to assist them with some contact numbers for musicians and Irish dancers. I had returned to Bendigo to care for my parents but I have a background in Opera and Celtic Music and of recent years I have been running The Melbourne Celtic Festival on St Patricks day along with my friend Alison Jones. This is an event which is a fundraiser for Rotary and has raised $80K to date which has been shared between Australian Rotary Health and the Rotary Club of Port Philip for Mental Health Programs and other support services. So, I had the contacts to help with appropriate performers and was happy to assist.
During the course of the discussions, I suggested that the ‘Broughy’ partner with the Central Victorian Irish Association, which I had just joined, and schedule some workshops during the course of the festival.
To prevent the need to rely on the Associations funds for payment of the workshop tutors, with permission from the committee, I then approached the Rotary Club of Eaglehawk to seek sponsorship. I put forward a formal request and was very pleased that your members and committee saw the opportunity as very positive and CVIA were granted $1K to fund the workshops for which we are very grateful.
Three workshops were scheduled on Saturday afternoon. 1. Celtic Singing workshop with Cora Browne. 2. Tin Whistle workshop with Lisa Dullard. 3. Bodhran Workshop with Bhan Tre led by Geraldine Davis. The workshops were well attended with a spread of age groups in attendance. There were young families, retirees and every age group in between. Unfortunately, a 90th birthday party had been booked next door which impacted with some noise bleed but everyone persisted and I believe we can accept that everyone enjoyed the hands-on experience of learning about Irish instruments and music.
I was able to put a Rotary Banner advertising your involvement in the room on the day. The owners of the Broughy were quick to tell me what a hugely successful day they had as a business and thanked everyone for helping to create such a successful day. I was so pleased as there can be a lot of risk for a business to provide these sorts of events so it was wonderful that it was so successful for everyone involved.
To promote the event, Dennis and I attended your Wednesday club meet meeting and we were made to feel very welcome and my take out from that meeting is that I believe that we could create an interesting partnership between CVIA and the Rotary Club of Eaglehawk and explore community events or fundraisers. I was also invited to promote CVIA, Rotary and the event itself on Radio Phoenix FM on Thursday morning 31 August which went very well. John and Alison were fabulous hosts for the radio show and I enjoyed the experience very much so look forward to future interviews for fun events.
I thank your Rotary Club of Eaglehawk for welcoming Dennis Tarrant and me to your club with such warmth and fun and for supporting the notion of the workshops for the festival.
Kind thanks
Sue Foley
Temporary Secretary of CVIA
Rotary Club Port Philip