2005 Bulletin No. 2

Venue

The biggest news of this bulletin is that we have confirmation of our preferred venue, the Pit Buildings and Oval at Albert Park Lake. After some negotiations, Mark our Event Manager, was able to announce that he had secured the venue. A few people from the committee recently held an inspection of the venue to make sure it satisfied our requirements for the day. It is a HUGE space and will provide shelter for many stall holders and patrons on the day from the rain or the sun (we are hoping for the latter!). Since we wanted to have our proverbial vegan cake and eat it too we also have access to the open area of the oval outside so that we can make the most of a glorious day should we be lucky enough to be blessed with it. One thing us positive vegans can't control is the weather, so we made sure to make provisions for whatever weather the day will bring so that everyone can still enjoy the day in comfort.

We are also wrapped to still be able to stage WVD at Albert Park as this is a central and convenient spot for all to get to, plus wonderfully scenic, and sentimentally speaking the birthplace of this auspicious event. As this location is so central and accessible by public transport, why not make it a totally environmentally friendly day and leave the car at home and take either the tram or train in.

A few people last year made the journey in from country Victoria and even interstate, while many locals decided to make a day of it and stayed on enjoying the atmosphere until the very end. Due to this demand we have extended the finish time from 4pm to 5pm. This means that you get an extra hour in our cozy, safe vegan village before you have to go and face the real world again.

Media

Meghan is faxing media releases to many different publications so that we can get maximum coverage. She is now also targeting health related magazines.

Stalls

Leah and Michelle have been working exceptionally hard in writing, e-mailing, phoning and visiting potential sponsors to donate prizes for the raffle and/or to hold a stall. So far we have 24 stalls confirmed which is a great start and I'd be recommending everyone to buy plenty of raffle tickets as there are many great prizes in store.

Leah is also sourcing the food and drink items for our BBQ on the day when these are finalized we'll let you know what yummy products are on offer.

Website

As you probably can see Pete has given the website an overhaul and completely updated it recently so it's as current as can be. If you have some time take a look at the 2003 and 2004 WVD pages to see what's gone on before, then you can compare how much this day has grown in such a short time, a good indication of things to come in the vegan movement hopefully.

Pete also has completed the arduous task of entering all the survey results in a database, these provide extremely valuable feedback to the committee and help us understand how to continually improve the event to fit in with your expectations and desires, as after all we stage the day for the benefit of the public. So please remember to fill out a survey before you leave the event this year.

Posters and Flyers

We are in the process of creating posters and separate flyers for public display and distribution all around Victoria. These have proven to be one of the most effective ways to publicize the event and an important source of free advertising to our target audience. We distribute them to vegetarian restaurants, health shops and public gathering places such as libraries, universities etc. Closer to the date we will be requiring as many people as possible to help us distribute them everywhere, so keep an eye out on this page to help with this when the call comes out.

We are also working on a raffle board where we will display the logos of those businesses who have helped us out.

BBQ Area

The ever super efficient Dermot has been working on building/modifying stands, benches, equipment etc for the food and service area of the BBQ and has his boxes with equipment and utensils packed and is all ready and waiting for the day to roll on. He has been working on a plan to make the area move quicker and more efficiently in order to avoid the long queue experienced during the peak time last year. This year we will have two cashiers and if anyone needs to ask questions about the food or drinks they should ask the cashiers so that the busy food service people can continue with their jobs uninterrupted and the queue will keep moving smoothly.

Volunteers, Activities & Entertainment

I've been busy trying to ensure that WVD will be staffed by an adequate number of reliable volunteers plus also building upon the activities and music we started with last year to make sure that people who spend the day with us have enough to keep them amused throughout.

I have been contacting potential volunteers and receiving confirmation of their attendance, so the next step for me is to make up a roster to fit them in to their preferred roles and times and when I see what is left I can then advise what needs to be filled and put out the call for more volunteers. Another important area I've been concentrating on is assembling musicians to entertain for the day, especially as according to last years survey there is a huge demand for more music. I have been pleasantly surprised that we seem to have quite a few of them in our ranks. So far all those musicians enlisted are either vegan or vegetarian! We're also lucky enough to have a few professional musicians amongst them, with one of them possibly even writing a special song for the day.

As for the activities front we are having a dedicated children's area with a face painter on hand and will repeat the successful sack race from last year. I am in the process of sourcing someone to co-ordinate this area and they will also add their own ideas for inclusion. Yoga in Daily Life have kindly offered to conduct a yoga class, so wear or bring comfy clothes if you intend to participate in that. By popular demand we will also run the Trivia Trail which proved to be very popular last year.

Volunteers will be sporting our lovely new T-Shirts and our logo now is Vegan - 'Live and Let Live'. We will be ordering these through one of our stall holders from last year who runs the ethical business - No Sweat (Unbranded).

That's the latest news, until next time.

Belinda on behalf of the WVD 2005 Committee.