The Yaraka B&S Ball
Those of us who are often caught saying, ‘those were the good old days’, said with a wry smile and a side inclination of the head and nod, are most probably at that stage of life where we can be likened to an excellent bottle of wine of the vintage variety; vintage being the keyword. We have the memories of when Top of the Pops music was such a contrast to todays music; back in our days you could actually understand the words that were being sung, the tunes were such that they could be whistled, hummed and we could sing or go solo. Nowadays music seems to be a cacophony of discord, with deafening reverberating base and singers whose words we can’t understand which in the case of Rap is rather a good thing; times are different.
However ‘the good old days’ are making a return in the form of The Yaraka B&S. How many of us remember this wonderful old bush tradition of the Bachelors & Spinsters showing their appreciation to the property owners who employed them by putting on what used to be an annual event; and they were huge! The ladies all dressed in their finery and the men in attire resembling penguins.
Well the young people in the area here got together and decided that a B&S should make a return but this time the emphasis should be on raising funds for charity. Now this has the potential to be huge due to all the new age technology.. Facebook, Twitter, e-mails, and the fact that everybody has their own transport these days. As such the B&S committee have decided that the cut off number of tickets will be limited to 500. Yes 500! And the tickets are selling very well at $45.00. A few coaches from the east are heading out for it. And come the day there will be traffic streaming into Yaraka from all points of the compass! All we need now is for a few aircraft to fly in for occasion to cap things off.
These young people have literally spent many, many hours in the planning of this event but are now putting in the hard yards of physically preparing the grounds and facilities at Kiama Park into a showpiece for the big day.
It all starts happening on Saturday 26th November and starts at 5.00pm when there will be ‘Young Farmers’ Sporting Events’. These will be physical challenges which are associated with every day property work; there could perhaps be some throwing around of wool bales, digging the deepest fence post hole within a limited time, breaking the bead on a spare tyre, disassembling it and then putting it all back together again, thong throwing, 100 meter sprints carrying a couple of 20kg bags…..well you get the general idea: It’s a spectator’s sporting event!
And after that the Auction starts with donated goods. These auctions are wonderful fund raisers and, for example, a bottle of rum was auctioned off at another recent charity event for $660.00!
And then the live band starts playing and they are good! Nice music and these guys can harmonise! And you can understand the words!
So music and dancing as the night rolls on. The bars open for he thirsty, the kitchen open for the hungry. And a whole group of people celebrating in true Outback style – an outback that holds out hope again with the wonderful rains received this year and the promising signs that we will also receive summer rains.
The good old days have returned and charity is the winner!