Rowany Festival Site Potential Change Process 2013

Dear festival-goers.

As you may know, the Rowany Senate is now some way into the process of deciding whether or not to a) move Rowany Festival to a new location, or b) stay in the current one.

This page will outline the steps involved in this process, where we are currently, and what step(s) follow.

STEP 1) PROPOSALS  (COMPLETE)

We put out a request for tenders for new sites, and that stage in the process has now closed.

Information about the current site, Glenworth Valley, can be found here.

Four sites were proposed for consideration, and they are:

1. Bungendore – Canberra (proposal document found here)
2. Womberoo – Southern Highlands (proposal information web site found here)
3. The Dairy- Western Sydney (proposal document found here)
4. Crossroads – Yass (proposal document found here)

STEP 2) CRITERIA  (COMPLETE)

In early February, the Rowany senate discussed what outcomes we’d like to see for festival, and came up with a set of criteria that we believe a festival site either must have, or would be nice to have. This set of criteria are based on many aspects of our past sites, as well as feedback we have received over the years from yourselves and from the past (and current) festival stewards.

Some are necessities (eg enough land to camp on), some we *could* live without, but are what we’ve come to expect from festival (e.g. fire pits), and some are simply “wouldn’t it be nice if…” (e.g. the ability to erect permanent structures).

Now, to be clear, you should know that Glenworth Valley (for all its pros and cons) basically works as a site for festival. They are happy for us to stay and renew our contract, and we have a good, functional working-relationship with them.

There is no glaring reason for us to leave. We are not being kicked out.

We know that the site does not work for all people, and that some people are not willing or able to come to festival due to the peculiarities of this site. However, we also recognise this will, unfortunately, be true of every site.

Therefore – this whole discussion should take into consideration that we have a fairly respectable bird in the hand right now.

If we are to change site – it will be because we have found a new site that exceeds the current one in what it can do for festival now and in the future.

Keeping this in mind, the process continued:

STEP 3) EXTRA-ORDINARY SENATE DISCUSSION (COMPLETE)

We conducted an extra-ordinary senate meeting on Thursday 21st February at St Peters Town Hall (near Sydenham Station) in Sydney.

The meeting started at 7:30pm and continued until 9.30pm.

This meeting was open to anybody that wished to be part of the discussion. A total of 26 people were in attendance,

At this meeting, we talked about the proposed sites, and how they meet the criteria. Proposers had the opportunity to describe their offering, how it meets the criteria, benefits of their site, and anything else they wished to communicate. Each proposal presentation was followed by questions from the audience which were then answered and discussed.

If you happen to have Facebook access, there is an ongoing conversation in the following Facebook group. You may wish to have a look:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/festivalchat/

(everyone is welcome, just ask to join the group).

AN AUDIO RECORDING IS AVAILABLE

Audio from this meeting was recorded so those who are interested, but were unable to attend, will still have a chance to find out exactly what was discussed.

If you are interested in the recording, THIS IS THE LINK (Size: 50Mb, Format: MP3)

To listen to the recording in your browser, simply click the link above and a new tab / window should open and begin playing the recording (in most modern browsers).

If you want to download the file for playing at your leisure using your favourite media player, you can Right Mouse Click on the link above and choose “Save As” or “Save Link As”  or “Equivalent Save Label” instead.

The quality is not super dooper, we even had some difficulty in hearing live at the meeting due to acoustics of the venue. Additionally, we enjoyed relatively frequent plane traffic overhead. Lastly, 2-4 mins in, required some adjustments to the recording equipment which are a little loud, sorry. All in all though, fairly comprehensible.

STEP 4) SELECT COMMITTEE (COMPLETE)

Following the meeting, a number of anonymous prominent and experienced people (Rowanites as well as representatives from North and South Lochac) shall numerically rate the sites (using a 1-5 scale) according to how much they fit each of the criteria.

Note: the site-raters have already been chosen. To reduce bias, all of those that have submitted a proposed site have been excluded from rating the sites. We’ve also tried to find a variety of people with a great deal of SCA experience behind them.

The ratings will be submitted in the week following the 21st, and the sites will be given a total score based on the aggregate scores from all the rankings – weighted according to how important the criteria are.

STEP 5) (COMPLETE)

The site that has the highest aggregate ranking will be presented to the Baron & Baroness of Rowany, who will have the ultimate decision between it and the current site of Glenworth Valley.

STEP 6) (COMPLETE)

The chosen site will be announced to all and sundry.

And that’s all there is to it.

The final date for renewing the contract at Glenworth Valley is at this coming festival (2013), so that is the final deadline for the decision, but we hope to have the before then.

Thank you for being part of this process, we will keep you informed and this page will be updated as the adventure continues to unfold.

Many thanks,

Rowany Festival

FINAL UPDATE

With the process now concluded, we direct you to the official announcement here.