Cowra Shire Council Mayor Bill West has described the 2021 Festival of International Understanding as “one of the best ever”, after Cowra displayed New Zealand at this year’s event over the weekend. After an absence due to COVID-19 last year, the festival was back with a bang with an array of events that saw mass participation from the Cowra community. The main events included the opening dinner last Friday night featuring Cowra’s 2021 Youth Ambassadors, the main street parade on Saturday afternoon, the carnival at Bryant Park which continued on into Saturday evening and the cricket match between Cowra and the New Zealand High Commission.
In addition to these, there was also a pavlova baking competition, a business lunch led by the Cowra Business Chamber, tree planting ceremony, a trivia night, a live webcast from “NZTrio”, and a screening on New Zealand movie “Bellbird”. “Two other events that proved popular were the karaoke competition and the performances of Maori cultural group “Tumanako”.
An array of local singing talent was discovered amongst Cowra’s karaoke singers, with Imogen McCormick taking out the junior division, Josie Reynolds blowing everyone away and taking out the 12-18 years division, and Bekki Brown taking out the senior division, and the free Air New Zealand tickets to Auckland, with her country-western beats.
Mayor West said the New Zealand High Commission was very receptive to being invited as the festival’s 2021 guest nation, and this was what made it such a huge success.
“We looked at New Zealand and their history, and there’s a really good mixture of interest and variety at various levels,” he said.
Festival Coordinator Meredith Burton thanked the Cowra community for turn-ing out in droves and supporting the event.
“The New Zealand High Commission have been over-whelmingly supportive, gone above and beyond. It’s been really great for Cowra to develop such a great relationship,” she said.
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