After 29 years the Guyra Lamb & Potato Festival continues to go from strength to strength. What started out as a simple idea to promote two of our most recognised prime agricultural products has taken on a life of its own.
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And while the idea to run it at the same time as the Tamworth Country Music Festival has helped it along, it is now a destination in its own right, rather than a stop off.
Bus loads arrive to check out the stalls and have a day out in our cool climate. Families make the journey to explore and give the kids a day out. Music fans not keen to visit Tamworth because of the crowds and heat stop in to catch an act or two. Just about everyone enjoys a tasty meal of lamb and spuds served up by the hard working locals who work to make the festival a success.
The opening weekend was huge and the coming weekend will be even bigger, featuring Military Vehicles, Classic Cars, Antique Machinery, Model Trains, a Talent Show and much more.
At a well-attended stallholders dinner held on Monday night, the guest of honour was founding father Frank Presnell who said that after all these years it makes him proud to think it is still going.
While he is no longer actively involved in the day to day running of the festival, he is still a regular and remains the guiding light for the current committee. Festival secretary Julie Gittoes said that it has grown from a ‘little baby’ into an ‘absolute monster’.
“I can’t believe how much food we go through – every year we seem to go through more and more,” she said. “What we used to make in a day we now make in just a morning, we are running out of everything and keep having to go back for more.”
At the half way point of the festival they have already gone through 225kgs of Guyra spuds and 120 legs of lamb. Another 420kg of potatoes have been served up as hot chips.
They are selling 300 individual pies a day and 50 family pies. They started out ordering 15 dozen bread rolls a day, upped it to 18 and then again to 22 and yet they still ran out.
To keep up with the orders requires a lot of people and Julie heads up a team of 20 volunteers working two shifts each day.
While some of these will work more than once, by the time the festival ends she will have worked with close to 500 people to get the job done. It is a remarkable effort.
“It makes me proud of Guyra that we can do this,” she said. “Every year they just turn up to help. We don’t get any outside assistance – Guyra does this.”