33rd Numeralla Folk
Festival 2007
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(All photos courtesy of Elizabeth Lore)
Numeralla ~ a small festival with a big heart.
The
festival runs on community spirit with loads of encouragement for kids. Dancing went on
both days from 8.00pm to 12.00 +++. The dance hall was full both with folkies and locals
who danced the nights away, to the excellent scratch band. Numeralla hosted lots of camp
fire sessions and these went on to the wee hours of the morning, and the locals had the
food going non stop. The steak sandwiches and scones with jam and cream were great and no,
they didn't run out, they just kept making more.
Elizabeth Lore
A couple of first-timer perspectives
My
first Numeralla differed from what I expected, in a nice kind of way. I arrived on Friday
evening, set up tent with Judy and we made our way to the community hall. The locals were
friendly and the food was good. Judy and I arrived at the community hall a little before
8.00 expecting the musos to be tuning up, but this is Numeralla time now. The musos turned
up at 8.00 and chatted for awhile and tuned up whilst the local population of farmers,
family and friends arrived to catch up on all the news. The children played, the teens
"hung out", the women chatted and the blokes talked in their clusters. The music
started about 8.45 and the Canberra crew were on the dance floor ready to start. Then
along came the festival goers from around the district to join in the dancing. Brown Jug
Polka is always a good dance to start with and it did encourage others to join the dance
but, after 20 times through we all cheered when the band stopped playing. The dancing was
called by a gallant lady at the microphone. But alas, we couldn't hear because everyone
was talking so much. Dancing skills were a mixed bag, so sometimes all chaos broke loose
and bodies, legs and arms were flying all over the place. But the night progressed nicely
with the experienced dancers mixing with the beginners. The weekend went off in a similar
manner and everyone had a great time.
Mary Petocz
We’ve only been in Canberra for 9 months and we are very new to dancing, so the stories we heard from the “old hands” of the atmosphere at Numeralla guaranteed that we would be attending. We arrived late on Friday afternoon, and were astounded by the number of campers already there. Having reached “a certain age” we decided that the peace and quiet of the relatively empty tennis-court camping area would be more to our liking (and besides, the toilet block looked newer!). So we pitched our tent, talked to the neighbours - they, like everyone else we met here were really friendly - and cooked a meal before wandering off to the hall for the 8pm dance. The first thing we realised was that time was flexible here in Numeralla - an 8pm start did not necessarily mean 8:00. The second was that the food was really good and very cheap - perhaps we needn’t have cooked for ourselves. And thirdly, we were impressed by the diversity of the roll-up, with every age group - from 2 to 82 - seeming to be well represented. We had been told that the band and dancing would be great, and so they were. The dances were simple, meaning that very little calling was needed, and everyone was able to enjoy themselves. An added bonus - during one of the breaks we went outside for a spectacular view of Comet McNaught. On Saturday we awoke to winter, but the day’s program didn’t have us out in the cold for long. Fran’s tap dancing class was a highlight (as were her fishnet stockings!), and the afternoon blackboard concert, with its diversity of acts and talent, was another eye-opener. Then another great night of dancing before crawling back to our tent some time after midnight. Like Macarthur, “we will return”.
David Hatherly
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