Saturday 1st August 2009 saw the Gove Peninsula Festival. At 0730 Mandy, Phil and Mark Ferguson started setting up for a long day; we also had a number of cadets help throughout the day. We only had 2½ hours to set up and place the art work on the top half of the Ambulance that the students at the Nhulunbuy Preschool had done. The theme was the Festival by the Sea.

The Festival started at 10am with a parade down the main street. The Ambulance was decorated by the Nhulunbuy Pre-School and as you can see it was painted with water paints on the bottom half of the outside, and you can see the art work that we stuck on the top half.

From 10am to 5pm we were stationed at the stall. There was information on one table all about St John Ambulance, on the middle table fundraising for the Adult and Cadet divisions and on the last table were first aid kits. Car 86 and our Volunteer Car 111 were also on display with two manikins (Annie), one on a stretcher of Car 86 and the other in a KED in the driver’s side of Car 111.

We ran out of show bags which were a great hit. There were also a lot of people interested on what we do as many people did not know we sell First Aid kits and have a volunteer division. We announced a competition, Name the Ambulance, which the local MLA Lynne Walker sponsored and gave a $50.00 voucher to spend locally. Mandy’s niece came and gave us a hand with our fundraising; without Lindsay we would not have raised the amount we did, so thank you Lindsay. After 5pm there was a band until midnight.