An ACT grower has taken first prize in the giant pumpkin event at the Collector Village Pumpkin Festival. Derek Forster from the ACT entered a 308 kg pumpkin in the RATCH Australia sponsored event to claim first prize and set a new record for a pumpkin grown in the ACT. However, his vegetable fell short of last year’s Festival record set by Ken Ryan with a 420 kg monster. Ken was a close runner up in this year’s event with a 304 kg pumpkin; just 4kg separated the two growers and has set the scene for a mighty challenge in 2013.
Derek Forster with his 308 kg winner – 2012.
The success of the festival has taken the organisers by surprise. Expecting a crowd of up to 5000 people, the Village of Collector was bursting at the seams when an estimated turn-out of 8000 people flocked to the colourful event on Sunday. President of the Collector Village Pumpkin Festival, Mr Gary Poile said; “it was an outstanding day and a great success. People came from all over the state and from the ACT. We had no idea that it would turn out to be such a huge event and even though the weather was a bit on the cool side everyone seemed to have a great day”.
Visitors were treated to performances on the main stage by Pat Drummond and Karen Lynne with a special guest appearance by Alice Plumb. The Collector Public School, Goulburn Soldiers Cub Pipe Band, Desiree’s Dance Academy and the Sing Australia Choir also entertained the crowds.
Events such as the scarecrow building competition again proved very popular with almost 100 colourful scarecrows created by children and family groups – each with a pumpkin as the head!
A new addition to the festival schedule this year was the Scone Bake-Off. This event was conducted inside the Collector Memorial Hall and required contestants to bake six pumpkin scones and six scones of their own choice in 30 minutes before judging by members of the audience. The event was won by Lydia Cook, another contestant from the ACT. Her specialty was Macadamia and white chocolate scones that impressed the judges and were described by event coordinator Jonathan Taylor as being “simply delicious”.
The huge crowd was welcomed by the many stallholders selling everything from locally grown produce to exotic gifts and gourmet food. The Ryan Family from Towrang have become regular stall holders selling their farm grown pumpkins. Testimony to the quality of their produce was the way the visitors flock to their stall to purchase pumpkins for winter soup and baked dinners. The Collector Community Pumpkin Soup stall sold over 200 litres of soup and has plans to double the quantity next year, such was the demand. Pumpkin scones also sold out early as a result of the crowd eager to sample the wonderful local food.
All proceeds from the Collector Pumpkin Festival are returned to community projects and the Festival organisers are hopeful of donating at least $10,000 towards upgrading facilities at the Collector Memorial Hall this year after contributing this amount to the refurbishment of the Collector Oval last year.
A full list of prize winners will be posted on the Festival website: cvpf.info/Competitions and Events and visitors are also encouraged to provide feedback on the event by posting on the festival facebook page www.facebook.com/CollectorVillagePumpkinFestival.
Gary Poile thanked his committee and all the volunteers who helped stage the communities flagship event and the sponsors including RATCH Australia, Essential Energy and Acciona Energy; “Without their help the Pumpkin Festival would not be possible,” Gary said.