REGISTERED BY AUSTRALIA POST - PUBLICATION No. VBH 6369
JUNE 2013
Annual General Meeting
RO U CLU
THE
Swiss Festival
On Sunday, 17 February the Swiss Community of Victoria celebrated the much loved Swiss Festival right in the heart of the city at Queensbridge Square for the first time. This place is centrally located, it’s only a 5 minutes’ walk from Flinders Street Station and is a major pedestrian plaza located by the Yarra. It connects Southgate (near the Arts Centre), Southbank Boulevard, Queensbridge Street, Crown Plaza, the Freshwater Place apartment tower and Sandridge Bridge. The relocation of the festival from the Austrian Club in Heidelberg to the city of Melbourne had two main objectives: A) to attract a larger audience in order to present our home country Switzerland with its rich cultural heritage to all Melburnians and B) to appeal to a larger pool of sponsors to improve our offering on the day. I can happily say, we were successful on both accounts. The official count revealed, we had 5,000 people coming through on a hot 34C day (!) and we were able to get the support of our major event sponsor Switzerland Tourism. Other important sponsors were the Consulate General of Switzerland/Embassy of Switzerland, the Victorian Multicultural Commission, the City of Melbourne, the Swiss Club of Victoria and Henkell Brothers. At this point I would like to thank all our sponsors for their generous support. I must also mention the important assistance the committee received from the Dutch Community who has been using Queensbridge Square for the last seven years; their guidance helped us enormously in our planning and organisation of this unique event. The hard working Swiss Festival Committee with Bruno Giger (Treasurer), Damian Schaller (Marketing) and his fiancée Melinda Varley (PR consultant), Patrick Albert (Sponsorship & Logistics), Roger Moullet (Food & Beverage), Sylvie Eggertswyler
T
ABOU D N B
The Swiss Festival has gone to town!
IS SW S
Society AGM
40th Anniversary Dinner Swiss Festival Unterhaltungsabend
(Entertainment), Vreni Welsh (Volunteers) and Thomas Schmocker (Swiss Liaison) also reorganised the running of food & beverage by giving the Swiss Community groups the opportunity to manage their own stall. The Swiss Club of Victoria, Groupe Romand du Victoria, the Swiss Yodel Choir Matterhorn and Trachtengruppe Schwyzergruess took up the challenge and sold drinks, sausages, crêpes and gaufres, ice-cream, trash & treasure and much more to the visitors. Roger Moullet, our Swiss Club Manager had its own stand selling imported Swiss wines & beer to thirsty patrons. The Red Stairs, a permanent purpose built stage adorned with a huge Swiss flag, was the venue where most of the entertainment took place including the traditional part with choir singing performed by the Swiss Companion Singers, yodeling by the Swiss Yodel Choir Matterhorn and Swiss Yodelers from Sydney, folk dancing by the Swiss Folk Dance Group Alpenrose with Chris Thalmann (Schwyzerörgeli) & Tom Webb (Singing Saw) and the fabulous ‘Kapelle Grüezi Mitenand’. Modern Switzerland was represented by a gifted break-dance performer Coskun ‘Tuffkid’ Erdogan & Moses Iten’s Delire Nostalgique DJ set by the Swiss Conspiracy. The fabulous Swiss Finale with Schwyzerörgeli/ Singing Saw, Swiss Yodel Choir Matterhorn/Swiss Yodelers of Sydney & Beat Stuber on the bass heralded the end of the festivities around 4pm. Our tried and trusted MC Joe Bovalino from Gold 104.3 led through the program with his usual wit and charm. Switzerland Tourism together with Holidays on Location & Swiss International Air Lines manned a very busy stand and gave away a major prize including a seven day holiday package in Interlaken and flights to Switzerland. The lucky winner was Mr. Yannick Jarnet. Continued on page 6
89 Flinder s Lane • Melbour ne 3000 • Victor ia • Australia • www.s wissclubvic .com.au