Barcaldine Rally Report

The Rally is over and the dust has settled. A frantic week for our Barcy business people and CMCA volunteers alike. Overall reports were of a good time being had by all, with many Members commenting on how lucky we are to be living in Barcy! It is not often that we have ‘back to basic’ bush Rallies.

This was the first time in the history of the Club that a Rally of this size had been held in the same location. All up we had over 1,000 motorhomes and some 1,850 people.

A good deal of fund raising was done to inject some new funds into our local charities and organisations; as usual our Members’ generosity was outstanding.

Money raised at the Rally included $2,454 for the Cancer Council from The Biggest Morning Tea, Clip for Cancer, sale of pieces of the CMCA Anniversary birthday cake baked locally, and donations from other CMCA Members. Another estimated $5,000 was raised for the Cancer Council at two barbeques for CMCA Members.

The Goat Auction raised $2,070 for the Jennie Lockie Fund, and the gold coin fee for the participants in the longest line of motorhomes raised $2,082 for Angel Flight.

Barcy State School raised $1,499, and the SES earned $1,500 for providing security on the Gate, the Golf Club took $873 in Open Day entry fees.

The CMCA keeps a record of what shoppers spend in town, and those who submitted their dockets totalled over $125,000. An additional $150,000 is estimated to have been spent in the town and surrounding district.

Several die hard Members stayed on at the showground to enjoy life in the bush a little longer. On the Queen’s Birthday weekend they enjoyed our local camp draft competition, where the horses greatly outnumbered motorhomes.

The longest line details have been compiled for Guinness World Records ™ and will be submitted when the video footage is made available by Channel Seven. It will be up to Guinness to decide whether we gain a record for the longest line (11.25kms) or judged on the number of vehicles. The types of vehicles recognized are all RV’s, caravans excepted; so motorhomes, campervans and fifth wheelers are all included.

The town was excited by the goat race, and is busy working on making Barcy the Goat Racing Capital of Australia.

Thanks for all the Members who attended the Rally, and a special thanks to our volunteers who served them so well.

Words by John and Joycelyn Bennetts, Q5331