A community organisation in South Australia is going above and beyond to ensure demoralised farmers in the state enjoy the spirit of the festive period.
The Jamestown Apex Club's The 24' Drought - Resilience at its Best is getting underway on the weekend of Saturday, December the 14th in Jamestown at Victoria Park and is being widely acknowledged as a premier festive event for the state's farming community.
Tyson Sparks is one of the event organisers and appeared on Flow's Country Viewpoint program to profile the cost-free event for listeners.
Sparks told listeners plans for the event were initially modest, but that word spread across the regions rapidly.
"It started off as a very small thing...it's grown into a quite a massive thing now, we've been overwhelmed with the support that we've got from outside of the area because we were conscious of not targeting local businesses and we've basically got together to have an event to try and finish the year off on a high, pick up spirits going into the Christmas break and really put a focus back on family and what's really important," Sparks said.
Sparks explained that the event is effectively entirely free aside from those attending who are wishing to consume alcoholic beverages once inside the gates and that there'll be no shortage of amusement and amenities for all age demographics.
"We're basically putting on a completely free event, only cost is for those that want to drink...we've got events on for kids, lots of events for kids, we've got bouncy castles in the big shed at the Victoria Park in Jamestown, which are very popular at the local Jamestown show," Sparks said.
"We've got laser skirmish going on on one side, we've got some cricket games going on, they're [SACA] going to bring a player up as well to sign some memorabilia and bits and pieces, we've got a roving magician, we're going to have some water pistols there, we're going to have a heap of free bits and pieces and some entertainment.
"A bit later on there's a couple of bands playing on the main stage which happens
to be a Shearing Shed, which sort of fits in with the theme quite well, we've got an Elvis impersonator.
"We have wine, cheese platters and a psychologist that really delves into
the chemistry and how the mind works and how it works under stress and just giving some people some tips on how to deal with it," Sparks said.
Sparks said farmers and producers had experienced a particularly difficult time working in South Australian regions across the year.
"It's worse on record basically, if you talk to a lot of the older blokes, they haven't seen it this bad before, there's just stuff that's failed, crops that have failed, especially in areas that aren't used to it, they're failing as well," Sparks said.
"So it's really bad in the more marginal areas, some of them are a couple of years in now, it's a real hit on the local economy and the businesses, especially the town businesses."
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