Marti’s Canowindra Balloon Fiesta held its debrief meeting last week, attended by 30 people at the Bowling Club. The meeting gave the committee the opportunity to discuss the good the bad and the ugly of the festival., The good found that Marti’s had again received a high interest from the media and this was evident from both film and print media. , It was also evident from those who attended the festival that despite the weather, the general consensus was that “they had a great weekend and would return to Marti’s and the region again”., John Williamson, Fotis Fireworks, the Bundaberg Bull Ride, the Pedigree Pal Dog Trails were the feature events of the festival and all the other entertainment continued all day and well into the night. , The only event on the program that didn’t happen was of course the Balloon Glow and the balloons flying on Saturday Morning. , The balloons of course are the feature that most people want to see and due to inclement weather, this was difficult to achieve, but we all know it is a sport which is weather dependant., The bad found that numbers through the gate were considerably short of estimates because of the weather. , Thus causing the most concern for members of the board during the weekend. , Of course this also means that Marti’s isn’t in the position that it had hoped it would be after the event., General discussion after the meeting included other topics, such as , (Story continued Page 4). , 4), e future of Marti’s, the ticket pricing structure of the event, post media attention, potential avenues of sponsorship for the 2002 event. , The most amazing factor was the support that the Marti’s Canowindra Balloon Fiesta has within the wider community, not just in the Canowindra Community. , Offers of donations and support from sponsors and community members to see the event continue, shows the effect Marti’s has on those who are involved with this fantastic event., Following general business it was at this point that Frank Daniel addressed the meeting with some ideas on generating funds for the 2002 event. , The proposal is to hold an event in October that features a full day rodeo and an evening of entertainment featuring the Wolverines in Concert., Robyn Wilkinson then spoke to the meeting about some of the issues which the committee needed to consider, the first and foremost the ability to stage another large event by the people who undertake the annual event., The board felt that it was important that more people became involved at this stage in organising the 2002 event, so that there is no time delay in planning when the AGM and the new Board take on their role in August., Robyn Wilkinson also put a motion to the committee that a town meeting be held soon to allow people to have their say about the Fiesta, but more importantly to give Canowindra the opportunity to pull together and realise the benefits of being a member of the Canowindra Community, after all WE ARE CANOWINDRA, and we are made up of so many different organizations and that we should all be pulling in the one direction., Ms Wilkinson said “Don’t be afraid to attend this meeting, you wont be pushed or shoved into doing a job, its about Canowindra pulling together to achieve the best for Canowindra. , To this end we the committee would like to see all organizations send a representative to the meeting, Service clubs, Schools, sporting groups business houses, every organization that exists in Canowindra. Canowindra no longer has a hierarchy in place to lead the town into this century and its time we got back to the basics of what we are all about CANOWINDRA.”, Meeting to be held at the Canowindra Bowling Club @ 7.30pm 17th May. Everyone welcome.,