21/10/2025
A huge thank you to the HOG committee, and volunteers for putting on the best festival ever! What a day! Night and everything in between. Thank you for putting your heart and soul into this event Saturday was the busiest Iโve ever seen my shop, people everywhere! And a huge thank you to my girls Beaty, Arie & Ruby we were all run off our feet all day, I couldnโt of done it with out them ๐ฅฐ
Hi everyone!
Holly here. This post will look a little different to all of our other posts - because I am very unskilled in the social media department! Lydia is going to kill me because this will muck her scheduling program around, but I promise itโs for a good cause!
This is my post to tell the world how eternally grateful, overwhelmed and appreciative I am of my crew. Sorry, long post, but please take the time to read it.
Most of you know the story about how HoG started. I feel my name gets dropped a lot surrounding HoG. Yes, I started it, and had the vision. However. There is NO WAY I could have pulled this off alone.
Every single person in this picture has embraced, taken ownership, and equally owns HoG as much as me. And I am so glad to share this experience, hard work, grit and determination with them all, as they are the best of the best. I could not find a better committee if I tried. Hearts of Gold belongs to all of us, equally.
Anna Bell - Treasurer, 2IC, the bad cop to my good cop, fun police, my right hand woman. She can read my mind, finish my sentences, and is super organised. She is also slightly scary and I do as Iโm told!
Lydia Anderson - Social Media QUEEN. Every post, story, comment, has been Lyds. Scheduling like a boss, always has a funny story, says it like it is, and the hardest worker I know. Lydia went down a rabbit hole of hard work and took on all the nitty gritty jobs and juggled them like a pro! Just donโt give her a microphone or pull her on stage ๐คฃ๐
Laโshey Cattle - Organised every food truck, literally contacted over 100 food vans to book them all in. Keeps our meetings to a timeline (well tries to anyway! We do get sidetracked!) and always has great ideas.
Deanne Blackstock - our beloved secretary, mother hen to us all. Always thinks of ways to involve everyone, and is super creative and is always making sure we are all doing ok. Always positive and first to put her hand up to help with anything.
Fiona Hague - Merch. Committee shirts. Thank you packs. Lists. Sheโs all over it. Takes no funny business from anyone and is fiercely loyal. Always smiling and laughing and is a complete smart arse - my kinda woman!
Louise Jacobsen - Can make everything look classy. Golden Gala tickets that were black and gold sparkled, wax sealed envelopes, hand delivered to sponsors with style and grace. Knows how to market us, recruited endless sponsors and promoted us every opportunity she got. Full of professionalism, glamour and style, she definitely pulled this bogan up a peg or two!
Lacey Pettit - had many contacts and knew who to contact, saving us hours of unnecessary searching! Was happy to do whatever was thrown at her and worked her butt off over the weekend, moving all our merch and tent all over the town! No fuss, can do, just get in and do it. Such an asset to us!
Anna McCollough - The Colour Run was Annaโs baby and she nailed it! All the obstacles were spot on and she quietly pulled that together with minimal fuss, her vision was perfect, a huge job taken on by herself. Another hard worker that will do the heavy lifting without a second thought.
Marina Uys - Marina was the one who knew all the difficult, behind the scenes โboringโ paperwork type jobs that needed to be done, and quietly helped pull it all together. The majority of us have no idea about Traffic Management Plans, DAโs, insurances, etc, and Marina gently guided us in the right direction. Found grants, opportunities that could help, and sent them all our way. A forward thinker and a wealth of knowledge, we would have been stuffed without her.
Lastly (and sometimes forgotten - poor bloke) my husband Ryan. He made endless dinners and cups of teas at meetings, stored ALL the things in his shed like a Mary Poppins bag, did all the blue jobs so well and spent the WHOLE day at Ron Crowe oval on Saturday. From 7.30am - 11pm. Missed the Main St event completely so he could set up all day. He got bossed around my multiple women - mainly me, and hardly ever told me to get stuffed. ๐คฃ
Obviously there were a lot more jobs in there that everyone had done, but each and every single one of these people, plus their families, made HUGE sacrifices to pull off such an epic weekend, and I want to make sure everyone knows how amazing they all are. The level of organisation within us is to be commended. If i asked for a job to be done, it was, every time. No questions asked.
And the amount of times i heard one of us say over the weekend -
โoh no i havenโt done this yet!โ
Then it is followed directly by
โitโs ok, i saw it there and just did it!โ
Was truly incredible. I heard it a lot, we all had each others backs, we worked so well as a team. I lost count of the amount of times i either cried or wanted to cry at a moment of appreciation, or of just pure awe at this crew. You all amazed me, and this weekend has been my proudest moment ever, and it is all because of all of you.
Team work makes the dream work - and i am blessed with the best team, the results speak for themselves! ๐
