WHAT makes the Gympie Music Muster great isn’t the music.
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While there are some great artists in the line-up for this year’s event, which kicks-off today in the Amamoor Creek State Forest, the community spirit that gives it such a friendly atmosphere comes from the volunteers. And there’s plenty of them.
“Without the volunteers the Muster wouldn’t happen,” the Muster’s executive director, David Gibson, said on Tuesday. “Unlike other music festivals that are corporate based, this one is set up as a charity and we are fundamentally community based.”
Everyone on the board of directors, to the people working on the gates, cleaning the grounds and serving behind the bars have volunteered their time. Stalls are operated by sporting clubs and school P&C’s and for them it can be their biggest event of the year.
“We have some schools in our region that are two or three classroom schools and they might have 20 or 30 kids tops, and they’ll come out here and do a fundraiser, cleaning the toilets, and that will be their fundraiser for the year. And they get their whole community involved.”
For the first time volunteers are coming from outside the Gympie region, with the Australian Motorhoming Lions Club assisting at this year’s event. Made up of Lions members from around the country who own RV’s and motorhomes and are travelling around Australia, the club has descended on the Muster this year and they will be operating one of the bars at the Muster site.
This year the Muster celebrates its 35th year. The first one was a concert on the Webb Brothers property in 1982. The trio of brothers had staged the concert as a celebration after winning a Golden Guitar that year for Who Put the Roo In the Stew. Plus their family property was 100 years old.
They enlisted the help of the Gympie Apex Club, and it became an annual event run by the club as a fundraiser for their local region. That fundraising went national in the mid 1990s, when the proceeds went to a national drought appeal, and now the Muster has a charity that it donates its profits to each year.
In previous years this has seen the event support organisations such as the Royal Flying Doctor Service and the Leukaemia Foundation.
This year it is Mates4Mates, who provide support for ex-servicemen and women, and their families, after they have returned from active duty. While the music is always great at the Muster, it’s that community spirit that makes the event great.