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| 2009 Royal Canberra Show ReportI am exhausted as I have just come back from a busy, but very successful (long) weekend at the 2009 Royal Canberra Show. This was the inaugural exhibit for our newly formed NSW/ACT branch. There was a lot of preparation to do including arranging banners, uniforms, business cards, photo displays, competitions and merchandise to sell. With a strong team effort and an awful lot of work by our tireless branch secretary (Glynda Bluhm), equally hard working treasurer (Wendy Bell) and very talented graphic designer (Noeline Cassettari) it all finally came together. Glynda had arranged a great site, behind the animal nursery with lots of room for a large pen, shade for the llamas and people with water close by. It wasn’t on any of the main paths but plenty of people found us, especially as we were included on the Animal Walk which is a competition where people get stamps at various animal related locations around the show. We had a fabulous group of volunteers to man our display which was open on all three days from 8:00AM – 5:30PM. In addition to stamping animal passports, selling merchandise and providing information they had to answer a mountain of llama questions, the most popular being Do they spit & What is the difference between llamas and alpacas? I was delighted to meet many of our new members who turned up to lend a hand. Stef and Dan O’Leary and Maggie Moore not only helped out at the exhibit but also took their stunning and extremely well behaved llama babies Llama Magic Dalai and Llama Magic Loki for a walk around the show.
Our New Llama Banner, showing both the LAA & Branch logo - Please note our lovely purple tabards made by seamstress extraordinaire Wendy Bell. Some of the older llama boys also went for walks amongst the public and as expected they proved to be very popular. You could only walk 2 or 3 paces before someone stopped you wanting to pat the llama, take photos or ask questions. In addition to Dalai and Loki our llama attendees included PR veteran Ardcree Roberto and fellow Llama Magic herd mates Ardcree Mahogany, Llama Magic Bolero, Apache, Alabaster, Saracen and Zambuka. All the llamas were extremely well behaved, patient and tolerant of being patted, photographed and looked at. You couldn’t have asked for better ambassadors. The Canberra Show was the official launch date for our recently introduced PR Llama Championship (see the NSW Branch report for more information) which means all the members that attended have already accrued points towards the award.
Ardcree Roberto showing off his new attire - shown with stall holder and owner Glynda Bluhm. We had lots of items for sale, many of which were donated by Bruce of Useful Llama Items. The most popular items seemed to be the glow in the dark; I love Llama wrist bands (thanks Noeline for organizing them), llama pens, cookie cutters, badges, magnets and keyrings. We also had general llama information and pamphlets for people to take. We held a Guess the weight of the llama contest, which was won by Rebecca Knupkis of Latham, ACT & Elly Sabioussi of Young, NSW. Elly’s guess was particularly accurate, within only 1.6 kg of the actual weight of 196.6kg. On Saturday afternoon Noeline held a free class on how to draw a llama in two minutes. The weather was mostly kind, although a strong hot wind on Saturday afternoon proved challenging, knocking over our photo boards and scattering the items on our display table and making it very difficult for our llama drawing classes. Over the weekend we had a couple of serious enquiries about llamas and we hope these will translate into sales for our members and new members for the association. My special thanks to Glynda, Wendy, Noeline, Alex Mond, Lorraine Rogers, Jennie Curtis, Rosalie Jones, Step & Dan, Maggie, Jane & Andrew Jennings and Glynda’s friends Linda Aunela and Hans Bluhm for all their hard work over the weekend, they were all instrumental in making our first public exhibit so successful. Jo Weir, NSW/ACT Branch President This is our wonderful photo/information board, kindly created by Ros Bush. Some of the public meeting Ardcree Roberto and Ardcree Mahogany |
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National Llama Association of Australasia (LAA) Website Copyright © 2009
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