The Booringa Action Group is encouraging locals to ‘take a holiday at home’ this year with a brand new family-friendly New Year’s Eve Beach Bash.
The event aims to bring a slice of the traditional sea-side holiday without the price tag to Mitchell with a mechanical bull and surf board, photo booth, sand dance floor, live music, DJ, kids slip and slide, jumping castle, and twilight markets, all for the cost of a donation to charity partners.
The NYE Beach Bash will fill a big hole in the New Year’s Eve landscape left by the Mitchell Rodeo, which has officially moved from December 31 to the first week of April.
Not only will the Beach Bash provide a family-friendly event with something to entertain people of all ages, but it will also help raise much needed funds for the Mitchell Golf Club, which is restumping a clubhouse damaged in the 2012 floods, and the local hospital auxiliary.
Despite receiving grant funding, the golf club still needs community support to raise the money necessary to complete the project.
In recent years the hospital auxiliary, through a combination of fundraising and grant applications, has managed to fund 11 new beds for the hospital as well as televisions, oxygen concentrators, an observation machine and emergency room vests.
The Booringa Action Group thought it was time to give back to and support the auxiliary by making them a Beach Bash charity partner.
As well as providing entertainment and supporting local charities, BAG wants to give local makers and creators an opportunity to showcase their wares through twilight markets.
Instead of a site fee, organisers are asking for stallholders to make a donation to the event’s charity partners.
The Beach Bash also aims to re-engage the youth of the community through enabling them to have an active role in the creation and provision of the event.
The project is being led by BAG community development officer Jane Cornish, who has brought on board a number of younger people to provide fresh ideas and give them a sense of ownership of an event, which BAG hopes will become a fixture on the region’s annual events calendar.
For anyone wanting more information and event updates please see the Booringa Action Group Facebook page www.facebook.com/BooringaActionGroup and event https://www.facebook.com/events/1247450088630729/
