On March 3, Ms Lisa Neville (member for the Bellarine) made a statement in the Victorian state parliament about the success of the 2011 Festival of Glass.Ms Neville's statement was recorded in Hansard and is reproduced below. The Festival of Glass committee is grateful to Ms Neville for her interest and support and wishes her well.
Ms NEVILLE (Bellarine) - I would like to congratulate all the people involved in the inaugural Festival of Glass, which was held on Sunday, 20 February, at the Potato Shed in Drysdale. This is a great new initiative on the Bellarine Peninsula and was an enormous success with around 7000 people attending on the day. The festival brought together the artists who work with and use glass, those in the commercial and building industry who design and build with glass, the culture and heritage of local glass and the innovations of glass for the future.
Members of the festival committee were delighted with the attendance, which was a masive endorsement of their dream that has taken 15 months to become reality. The ideas was generated from the Drysdale-Clifton Springs Community Association, and it was part of the Bellarine strategic plan to conduct a community festival. The president of the association, Doug Carson, had the vision for the festival and a willing and hardworking band of volunteers brought this to fruition. There were stalls presenting glass in all its forms, including sculpture, jewellery, mosaic, stained glass, leadlight, moulded glass, slumped glass and etched glass. There was glass at the cutting edge and a blast of glass from the past, with antiques and collectibles. Visitors overwhelmed by the scale and diversity of the glass on show also had a variety of musical alternatives throughout the day.
Sponsors and partners of the festival included the City of Greater Geelong, Bendigo Bank, Drysdale Rotary Club, the Lions club and many volunteers. I was also pleased to provide support for the festival. I thank everyone involved - it was a great day.
