Hi Landcarers

The first Homegrown Parkes event is done and dusted!

Feedback from the community has been fantastic! We are so grateful for the support that we have received from our stallholders, food vendors and the general public who came out in droves.

The majority of our fabulous stallholders were from Parkes. We were pleased to have several stallholders from Forbes, Cowra and Orange. Obviously, keeping it local was important to us.

Parkes played host to celebrity Costa Georgiadis, who engaged in every aspect of the event after backing up from a huge day on Friday, with Landcare’s Schools Eco Day and Dinner at Bogan Gate.

Over 40 stallholders participated, bringing together local first-time start-ups, sporting groups, schools and some more established local small businesses.

The alpacas and insects were definitely a hit with everyone…not just the kids! The smooth sounds of the piano in the Cooke Park Pavilion drew people into the fabulous pottery and paintings.

Food options were top shelf for a market event, with a wide variety of food vendors providing amazing fresh food options.

The Parkes Community Arts tents were a hive of activity with badge making, seed balls and origami….and face painting was in high demand!

The Committee, consisting of members of Central West Lachlan Landcare, Parkes Community Arts and Parkes Shire Council have been overwhelmed with wonderful feedback from the event and are so grateful for the support and participation of the community.

The grounds at Cooke Park looked amazing and our Committee want to send a shout out to the Parks and Gardens staff at Parkes Shire Council who were fantastic to work with on the day helping stallholders and keeping our space looking fabulous and particularly in the lead up to the event.

Our Homegrown Parkes Committee have held their event review meeting and now we have the decision moving forward…do we hold another event? If we do, when will it be? How do you back up after such an amazing day? We would love to hear back from the community and our stallholders. Survey’s will be going live via our social media and the Homegrown Parkes page this week.

Homegrown Parkes Community Survey

One thing I have learned is that event review and momentum for future events is so important, so that you keep improving whatever you are doing, while still keeping it ‘real’.

For further information on this article, please go to www.centralwestlachlanlandcare.org, Twitter, Facebook or Instagram @cwllandcare