01/09/10:

28/08/10:The Victorian State Bush Poetry Championships will soon be held at Wedderburn (October) Check the ABPA website for more information and entry forms.

One of our members Ken Prato is in the UK and performing Australian Bush Poetry at Whitby. We look forward to hearing about his adventures when he returns. Here's an email Ken sent to his friends and family-

Hullo Family and Friends, Here we go! My first foray into the brave new world of internet shops. [with a lot of help from an extremely helpful lad]. My travels this year have been much along the same lines as last year's expedition-one perfect experience after another. It began with two weeks in London catching up with many of my new-found folk world friends at the three venues I frequented last time, as well as calling down to Surrey from time to time to rehearse Whitby poetry/music stuff with Martyn and the other participants in our Down The Lawson Track concert. From there I headed North to Scotland for a short week seeing more of that part of the country. Iwas able to hire a car in Edinbugh and wander off into the Highlands, via the West coast and the Loch Ness area to Inverness, where I particularly wnted to visit the Culloden Battlefield site. [And 'No', I didn't see the Monster]. Along the way, I stayed at a hostel where I stayed last year, on the top bunk, sharing a mixed dorm with three 20 odd-year-old females and four young blokes. Hostels are different. After that night I found B+Bs to camp in. I had a couple of days in Edinburg where the Festival was happening, then South, on a train to Whitby. On arrival there I began the most enjoyable week imaginable. I'd known I was to be part of the Henry Lawson concert plus another program with Martyn about Australian swaggies, which included a story and poem of my own, plus some amount of dialogue I'd contributed, but when I was handed a list of other stuff to do it all became a bit mindblowing! First question was: 'Someone couldn't be here. Would you like to take his place in a folk-singing program tonight?' O K, what the heck! Then I read the rest of the program and found I was committed to appear at three other venues during the week, poetry, singing and storytelling, including one where I actually ran the show: 'Sheepshearer turned poet, Ken Prato leads this session of the spoken word'. I can tell you all I had a jolly busy week, spending nights creating stories and planning moves, but it all seemed to come together somehow. I was definately determined to meet the challenge. I'll drift momentarily into skite-mode now to report that I began to see familiar faces after a few days, a couple of whom told me they'd come again on the strength of something I'd done earlier in the week, having seen my name in the program for whatever new thing was happening this time. One lady even stopped me in the street to comment on a story I'd told a couple of days ago. All in all, a wonderful week. And staying in a perfect B+B at the expence of the Festival organisers. How lucky can one man get. I left Whitby on the Saturday to spend a couple of days in York exploring WW2 history, arriving back in London Monday. Last night I visited a folk venue again, with another coming up tonight, then off to Perth on Friday for a week and a half. After that it will be back into the real world again, out of the cloud-cuckoo-land I've been inhabiting these past few weeks [until next time]. That's it, So Long for now People, Ken.