On Friday October 3rd the inaugural Sugar Festival Charity Gala Ball was held at the Mossman Shire Hall.  About 150 local residents came to support the Mossman Community Centre fundraiser for the new van and to review the draft plans that had been prepared for the 2015 and 2016 Sugar Festival weekend.

MC Tony George kept the action packed evening rocking along.  His first duty was to introduce Mayor Julia Leu.  She had only arrived back from New York on Wednesday where she had been supporting her husband, Andre on his US tour to launch his new book and even though suffering a little from jet lag on Friday she'd had to dash back from the Bloomfield Bridge opening to ensure she attended what she knew was to be a memorable evening.

She was cheered several times from the floor as she made it clear that she was excited about the prospect of a community festival for Mossman and applauded the efforts of the trio of Desley lloyd from the Mossman Community Centre, Raelene McDonald from Bolt Burchill Tranter and Roy Weavers current General Manager of the Port Douglas Carnivale. 

Mayor Julia pledged the support of the council and urged the community to get behind the organisers and help ensure the final calendar of events was exactly what the community wanted.

The three course meal made up of pre dinner canapes, main meal and dessert was masterminded by Mojos Restaurant in Mossman and Remi and his team exceled themselves with a superb variety of dishes including Chicken Breast filled Brie wrapped in Prosciutto, Slow braised rosemary lamb shank, Vanilla Brulee Cheesecake and Daintree Chocolate Mousse with Chocolate Brownie uuummmm!!

The Gala Ball theming and decorations were put together by Ward Benedict with a little help from the Mossman State High School and its talented year 10 students under the tutelage of Nada Petrosevic.  They produced a whole range of banner wall hangings and table runners adapted and repainted with inspiration from an album of vintage photographs on the history of Sugar Cane farming.

Each of these wall banners and table runners were the unique major items that comprised the list on the silent auction that ran throughout the evening.

Event organiser Desley Lloyd said, "I'm pleased with the final numbers and overjoyed by the support eveyrone has shown the fundraising through the raffle and silent auction.  We need that new transport!!"

MC Tony George brought the audience to order straight after the main course and introduced acting festival manager, Roy Weavers to present the draft plans to start the Sugar Festival in 2015.

Roy made it clear that the plans set out in the brochure circulated during the evening were not, 'set in stone.'  He said, "You may have other ideas to propose, you may have some improvements to suggest.  You may want to change the dates, change the name, change the events...all things are negotiable. "

He explained that there is a competition to offer designs for a logo, a slogan and a name for the festival now running on the Suger Festival website and Douglas Shire residents and school students are all invited to enter.  Full details are available at www.sugarfestival.com.au.

Roy thanked Mayor Julia and the other councillors and the community for their support and enthusiasm for the festival and welcomed the input from the whole community over the next few months to ensure Sugar Festival 2015 (or whatever it is decided to call it) will be a great success as it hits the road running.

MC Tony George then ran at a frantic pace through the 31 piece prize raffle draw, introduced the belly dancing display and encouraged everyone to try their hand at some indigenous dancing with some friends from the Ku Ku Yalanji people before handing the show back to Remi and his team to complete the delicious desserts.

Tony  then assumed his position back with his band colleagues to play in his brilliant trio to rock and bop the night away.

The work now begins on putting together the calendar of events and it will be interesting to see how the final range of events comes out.

Further details visit www.sugarfestival.com.au