The second annual general meeting for the River Arts Festival Incorporated will be held next week to elect a whole new committee following the decision of festival founder and first president, Merrill Findlay, to step down from her position.
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Ms Findlay made the decision to not stand for re-election at the AGM following the success of the second River Arts Festival which was held in October.
“The idea is for the festival to be fully sustainable and to thrive as an individual celebration, so it needs to be able to do that without its founder,” Ms Findlay said.
“I need to step away and give other people the opportunity to blossom.”
Ms Findlay says that while she still feels very attached to the festival and ambivalent about it, she knows it is the right decision and right time to step aside.
“Our first committee, along with all our volunteers and our sponsors, convincingly demonstrated that our town can host a fantastic regional arts festival, and now the new committee will have two years to make the next one happen,” she said.
“We have money in the bank and a commitment from our three major sponsors to fund the next two festivals, so I’m very optimistic about the next festival.”
River Arts Festival committee treasurer Margot Jolly says that the idea of the festival being driven by the community has always been Merrill’s idea in establishing it.
“It’s a community festival and you need people with ideas to drive it, but it should never become one person’s vision,” she said.
“If the community don’t have ownership then it won’t grow.”
While she will be stepping down from the committee, Ms Findlay will still be involved in the festival in other ways.
“I’ll be very happy to have lots of cups of coffee to pass on my experience and knowledge and to mentor people,” she said.
Ms Findlay will also be doing research on rural arts festivals through the University of Canberra’s Centre for Cultural and Creative Research and working at a policy level to influence local, state and federal governments to increase their support for the arts in rural Australia.
“We need to work at a grassroots level but also at a policy level to help grow it into a regional festival,” Ms Findlay said.
Ms Findlay has great plans for the future of the festival.
“My big vision is within 10 years, the festival has grown into the biggest cultural celebration west of the Blue Mountains to serve all the people in inland NSW,” she said.
“We do not have a proper arts festival out here, so the idea would be to incorporate other towns for a month-long festival which incorporates both local talent and allows locals to see talent from other regions and different parts of the world.”
The River Arts Festival Inc. AGM will be held on Thursday, December 19 at 6pm at the Forbes Sport and Recreation Club.
Anyone who loves the arts, or is interested in Forbes’ future is invited to attend the AGM, become a festival member and nominate for the committee.
Margot Jolly says anyone can come along and get involved.
“I’m hoping we get a good cross-section of people at the AGM,” she said.
“This is an opportunity for people to bring skills…we’re looking for all types of skills from good organisational skills, treasury skills, people skills etc.”
