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VILLAGE ROCKS ITS FIRST MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL

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CATTLE SALE

CATTLE SALE

By TIM HOWARD

The Clarence Valley’s historic village on the river, Ulmarra, could have another event to add to its storied life following the success of the inaugural music and arts festival on Sunday. Organisers, Ulmarra Village Inc, believe more than 1000 patrons focked through the gates of Small Park, better known as Ulmarra Showground for an afternoon of music, food and fun.

future,” she said.

She said the $17,500 grant, from the NSW Government’s Reconnecting Communities Fund had been won in a race against the clock.

“I had got a couple of smaller grants for events like community picnics,” Ms Leask said.

“But the (Clarence Valley) council’s grants person, Sammy Lovejoy, recommended we go for something bigger this time,” she said.

But it had been a came in with a jumping castle for the kids and Kade Valja put on an arts workshop and the Coldstream Gallery was on board.” people who have gone through fres, foods and a pandemic the opportunity to reconnect with each other,” she said.

Di Leask, from Ulmarra Inc, who with husband John, were the event’s gatekeepers, said the main comment they had was, “can’t we make this an annual event”?

Ms Leask said that should be quite within the village’s reach.

“The conventional wisdom is if you get a grant for an event and can show it’s successful, you fnd its much easier to get money in the close run thing as she and event organiser

Jeremy Jablonski put the fnishing touches to the application, which was emailed in at 11pm on the last day before applications closed.

But even with $17,500 in the kitty, there were the inevitable funding shortfalls.

“The community really stepped up to fll in the gaps,” Ms Leask said.

“The local RFS brigade

Ms Leask said Ulmarra Village Inc had partnered with the NSW Government, Clarence Valley Council.

“And big thanks to the council too for getting the grounds ready,” she said.

“It was actually still a construction site, but staff did all they could laying turf and cleaning up the area so we could run this event,” she said.

“Once the CBC precinct upgrade is complete, this would be a great event to run in the main street.”

She said the community response had also been outstanding.

“The ideas behind these grants is to give

“And that’s what we’ve had here. It’s been so good. People have been coming and going all afternoon.

“We had 700 free tickets to give away and 300 more for at the gate and they’ve all gone,” she said.

The entertainment lineup included: the Ryan Martin Trio, Eli Fahey, Jabiru and Rachael Noakes.

There were free activities that catered to all ages with an art workshop, jumping castle and face painting. In addition there were plenty of food trucks and other market stalls.

OUT of all the traits and trimmings that come to define us, none figure more highly in our estimation of what it means to be upstanding or trustworthy, than loyalty. It is little wonder that it rhymes with royalty, because it is the one true ever reigning monarch of the soul.

In an era that kids and cons itself into believing that everything has a price and can be bought and sold at the drop of a hat; loyalty looms as the example par excellence of that which is utterly unbuyable. Or as Clarence Francis once deftly observed, “You cannot buy loyalty. You cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things.”

Interestingly, the word loyal derives from the old French ‘loialte’ which relates to the notion of legality, itself based on the old Latin word lex, meaning law or that which is set down. Thus, it makes perfect sense when you discover one of the earliest definitions of loyalty was, “faithfulness to one’s own word or promise.”

A shame the world’s most prevalent biped is by and large an untrustworthy creature that needs to document everything and enter into binding contracts so that mutually agreed upon outcomes are attained. I often wonder how human beings fared during the bulk of our existence when the written word was not yet developed, let alone considered sacrosanct, and the spoken word ruled supreme.

To give one’s word meant everything once (and still does in many circles), and could be

Nigel Dawe

weighed in gold, incredible to think much of what we now say is retractable or deniable if it is not recorded in some way. As if loyalty were a steelyeyed, indestructible sphinx ever ready to remind us all of what’s important, Ada Velez-Boardley once said, “Loyalty is the pledge of truth to oneself and others.”

If being true to one’s word is the essence of loyalty, then sticking to your guns, albeit backing others in when things take a turn for the worst, constitutes its unbreakable beating heart. Untested, our expressed loyalty is exactly that, it is simply hot air that merely triggers an assigned trick: that of unquestioned support. But as Craig Groeschel once noted, “True loyalty is proven not proclaimed.”

Like love, loyalty is the ultimate of verbs – it is nothing short of a doing word, unfailingly it does what it has to do whenever it needs to be done. The tighter the challenge or the greater the odds, the more loyalty shines and shows its worth. And ultimately, “Without loyalty,” as Eric Felten once said, “there can be no love. Without loyalty there can be no family. Without loyalty there can be no friendship. Without loyalty there can be no commitment to community or country. And without those things, there can be no society.”

At the end of the day, who we are and what we ultimately stand for is intertwined with so many scrounge-able qualities, but none constitute a more discernible foundation, or is integral and deeply reflective of our true inner worth as a person – than loyalty.

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