Annual Summer Gala planning well advanced

 

The Mangawhai Do-main Committee runs the Mangawhai Annual Summer Gala with three main objectives: give the community a summer fun day, raise funds for the community-owned Domain, and provide a venue for commercial operators (mainly stall-holders) to sell their goods and services.

This event has now been running every year for about 40 years, evolv-ing and changing to meet the needs and expecta-tions of the community. With about 7000 patrons each year, planning for the gala is well under-way. The Domain Com-mittee is looking for help from the Mangawhai community.

Stallholder fees, en-trance costs and our own cafe-BBQ provide almost all of our gala income. Mindful of difficult times we have kept the costs of these the same for the last few years, and are

continuing these same costs forGala 2015.

Stallholders

One of the big year-round preparation ac-tivities is the booking of the sites for stallholders. Almost all of these are already allocated as of 1 December. Details can be found on the book-ing site: https://sites. google.com/site/man-gawhaidomain/home/ gd/gala-day-bookings, or alternatively contactman-gawhaigala@gmail.com.

In response to many requests we are increas-ing the number of food and drink outlets. These have already been allo-cated to expand the range of food available. We are having Japanese, Turk-ish, German, Hungar-ian, Spanish and “kiwi” food stalls. Mangawhai wines and olives will be available also.

Entertainment

The Dog Club will be

performing again this year, but with a changed programme with some new tricks. Likewise, there will be music again and we are still explor-ing some different ap-proaches to the last few years. The Vybeswill play to young and old alike at the main stage, with Des at the cafe deck. We have tried a programme of sports and races over the last couple of years. For Gala 2015 this will be ex-panded with new activi-ties added.

Traffic management and parking

We are now required to prepare and imple-ment a traffic manage-ment plan. Visitors can help on the day by ob-serving the No Parking areas, follow the direc-tions of our various vol-unteers and please exer-cise common road sense and courtesy. Regular readers of the Focus will be aware of recent prob-

lems of parking at times in places around Man-gawhai.

We encourage as much parking on the

Domain site itself, and a car load of people and in-ternal parking costs the same ($8) as bringing a family in through the gates on foot.

Volunteers and sponsors

We will be approach-ing business in the next 2-3 weeks to assist spon-sorship or donations for the ever-popular quick-fire raffles. Any assist-ance would be appreci-ated. Late news as going to press: Bayleys Real Es-tate Mangawhai and the Domain Committee have just reached agreement for Bayleys to be a major sponsor.

If anyone would like to volunteer to help out pre-gala or on the day, we would be most grateful – email us as above or ring John Dickie 431 4873.