WHYLD Newsletter February 2017
Welcome to WHYLD country and our inaugural newsletter. WHYLD is an acronym that stands for the towns ofWoori Yallock, Hoddles Creek, Yellingbo, Launching Place and Don Valley. As residents of these towns you are all considered to be part of WHYLD. The WHYLD community group have been around for a few years now, and our vision is to unite these five small towns to form a larger and more connected community. WHYLD have facilitated a number of free local events aimed at bringing residents together. This newsletter provides a snapshot of previous events with details for 2017. Keep these diary dates on the fridge as a reminder and bring the family and friends along to support your community events this year. See you soon!
WHYLD welcomes new members, so if you are interested in any of our events or activities, please feel free to contact us by email: welcome@whyld.org.au, and please do like us on Facebook: WHYLD Community Group, or for more information visit our website: whyld.org.au.
Winter Warming is an event for locals to venture out in the heart of winter, enjoy community spirit and celebrate the winter solstice. Fire and warmth are the central themes for this community gathering around
Face Painting provided additional activities for the kids at bargain prices. To cap off the event at dusk, the kids got to parade their lanterns and the crowd was spellbound by a spectacular fire dance performance performed by mostly
a bonfire with free activities and heavily subsidised hot food and drinks. With two events successfully staged, and funds secured for 2017, Winter Warming i s shaping up to be an exciting annual event for WHYLD.
June 19th 2016 saw a window of opportunity arise in the midst of a spell of wild winter weather and we were fortunate to have a calm cloudy day and the rain stayed away! Locals came out rugged up for the occasion while volunteers worked hard throughout the afternoon to provide all those delights of the winter season: a roaring bonfire managed by Hillcrest CFA,
handmade Winter Woollies Red Cross stall, roasted chestnuts by Black Leather Creek Farm, mulled wine from Hoddles Creek Estate, toasted marshmallows by WHYLD and hot hearty food & drinks prepared by Hoddles Creek Red Cross.
Free activities kept everyone entertained and warm with a Magic Show&Circus Play by The Dreaming Space, tin can lantern workshop and old fashioned games by WHYLD volunteers. Murphy’s Magical Donkey Rides and Meg’s
local volunteers under the guidance of the Fireworks Dance Company.
This year we plan to bring back much of this oldfashioned comradery plus a few surprises. With experience now up our sleeve we plan to fine-tune the fire dance performance and add a touch of professionalism to the event. Come along and share the warmth on June 18th 2017.
Meryl Knoll
Woori Kids Fest is part of a broader range of activities held around the Shire of Yarra Ranges to celebrate Children’s Week. Kids Fest is sponsored by Woori Yallock & District Community Bank and Woori Community House with support from Yarra Ranges Council and Woori Yallock Presbyterian Church.
This family friendly and free event emerged from the Woori Yallock Early Years Project: a network of family and children’s services in the area, to stage an event with an entire focus on kids. It has now developed into an annual event. 2016 year saw our biggest and best Kids Fest yet! Newly constructed car parking at the Woori Yallock Primary School opposite the Pressy Church venue provided for ample parking space, and from the sound of the school bell soon after 3pm parents and
kids started to cross the road. A perfect spring day had everyone in high spirits and set the scene for a great event!
While in previous years there were a variety of market stalls, this year there was a greater emphasis on free activities for kids, with only fundraising charity stalls Red Cross and Island Heart selling their range of homemade produce and products. Affordable snacks ranged from sausages, toffee apples, biscuits & cakes, locally made icypoles and our own barista coffee van. Regular activities such as jumping castle, animal farm and Hillcrest CFA & fire truck were back. New stalls Platypus Education and Vic Forests added an
environmental element. Murphy’s Magical Donkey Rides had a queue almost equal to the Face painting! Door prizes donated by local business: Yarra Valley
Archery Park,Woori Pizza and Lisa Angus Photography
The concept of the Medieval Village Fair at Camelot Castle was born out of the WHYLD Project’s Launching Place Town Meeting held on August 2nd 2012 at Launching Place Primary School at which theWHYLDevents subcommittee was formed.
all, look forward to the various activities such as the inimitable Punch & Judy show, live storytelling by the Knights of Camelot, enacted warfare by Gippsland Life Action Role Play, Roving Minstrels PRAXIS performing magical tunes, the appearance of MAGNI a real life
Over the course of 2013 we got together a committee in conjunction with the
Yellingbo Rural Fire Brigade and the first Medieval Village Fair was launched on 27th October that same year with an army of willing helpers. Our motto is: “low-cost and family-friendly” hence we only ask for a gold coin entry donation and apart from the merchandise sold at the individual stalls, the rest of the event is completely free-ofcharge. The Woori Yallock & District Community Bank Branch of the Bendigo Bank have enthusiastically embraced these same values by giving us a grant each year in order to cover
the cost of the activities. Woori Community House kindly auspices each event. Last October we held the fourth consecutive Medieval Village Fair at Camelot Castle although initially in doubt due to the bad weather forecast, it ended up being our best Medieval Village Fair yet with more emphasis on activities and less emphasis on stalls. While the stalls are an integral part of the Village Fair concept we’ve learnt that parents (and children), above
Icelandic horse, Medieval Living Skills by THE FYRD INC involving weaving, leather work, wool spinning, metal work, clothes dyeing and armour/weapon display, the numerous photo opportunities in the fabulous Camelot gardens as well as the various zany games organised by CFA JUNIORS – not to forget the variety of food stalls, Devonshire teas and coffee. The planning for 2017 is already underway with the date being 12th November. Hope to see you then!
Lindsay McKenzie
gave kids an incentive to visit stalls and collect stickers to fill the boxes on their entry tickets. It also provided organisers with a means to calculate visitor numbers : an estimated 400 people attending Kids Fest in 2016.
Woori Kids Fest will be back in October, so check the diary dates and mark it on your calendar!
Woori Community House is celebrating 30 years of providing services and support to the WHYLD community.
Join us to celebrate this milestone at our annual Open Day & Market. There will be free entertainment for the whole family including: live music, donkey rides, jumping castle, face painting, baby animals, taster classes and demonstrations. There will also be food & drinks for purchase and market stalls to purchase locally produced goodies.
Come along on Saturday March 25, from 10 am to 2 pm and find out what’s on offer in your local community.Get involved and have a stall! For further enquiries please call Woori Community
House on 59646857.
Winter Warming will be back in 2017, bigger and better than ever, with more of the same and some new activities.
WHYLD are inviting you to take part and are looking for volunteers to assist in the organisation and running of this event. We need helping hands to assist with set-up on the day, during the event and clean-up the day after – the more the merrier.
We are also seeking interested individuals to join our Fire Dance workshops, learn the art of fire twirling and have an opportunity to perform at Winter Warming in June. Our first workshop will be held on Sunday, 26th February at Wickhams Reserve in Launching Place, from midday until around 4 pm. Please contact us if you are interested in any of these opportunities to become involved in WHYLD.
WHYLD are celebrating our fifth year since the launch of our Community Plan.
To mark this occasion, we would like to invite you to come along and join us for an afternoon of activities where we will be reviewing this plan and looking forward toward what activities could be done in the future – anything legal goes!
This event will be held on Sunday 26th March from 3 – 6 pm at Wickhams Reserve in Launching Place: a central hub for ourWHYLDcommunity.
The afternoon will be catered for so please RSVP by Friday 17th March to secure a place at the table. We are your community group, so come along and have your say!
