The Castlemaine Lions Club has made the difficult decision to cancel its popular April Swap Meet for the second consecutive year due to covid concerns.
Swap Meet coordinator Ron Gartside said the club felt it had no choice but to postpone its major fundraiser for another year.
“With 600 stallholders and more than 3000-3500 visitors a year through the gates of the Camp Reserve this pushes us up into the state government’s CovidSafe Plan Tier 2 category and we felt the requirements were just to onerous and the requirements would be difficult for our members and volunteers to police,” Mr Gartside said.
“We also didn’t want to be in a position where we could potentially place the Castlemaine district community at risk,” he said.
Mr Gartside said the swap meet welcomes traders and collectors from all over the state and beyond.
“There are just too many unknown factors. We’d also hate to welcome our fantastic interstate site holders and then see them stuck in Victoria if the borders were to suddenly close due to an outbreak,” he said.
“We are extremely disappointed that we can’t go ahead and in turn that we can’t pass on the fundraising benefits to the local community groups that support us every year by volunteering at our event. But we feel this is the right decision in the best interests of our club members and the wider community,” he said. See the Mail for more…