VodaFest four days ago

Dear friend,

Huge success

A massive Thank You goes out to all of you who were part of the first VodaFest Czech and Slovak Festival 2010!

I'm speaking for the whole steering committee when I say we were overwhelmed by the number of people who showed up on Saturday. With the kind of weather we were having that morning, we would have expected a hundred visitors at the best. But over 350 of you turned up for the inaugural Czech and Slovak Festival in Melbourne. Together with the committee members, performers and volunteers, the total number must have been very close to 400, which, honestly, we didn't even dream of the night before.

Mr Tasler of I.M.T Smile congratulated the Czech and Slovak communities for an amazing event and wished us all the best in the future. He expressed hope that his rather accidental appearance at this year's VodaFest would help the festival gain attention from other Czech and Slovak artists and support from the national governments.

To listen to the SBS Radio's reports and interviews directly from the event, please visit the Slovak edition at http://bit.ly/9nNzai and the Czech edition at http://bit.ly/ceIZ8h

Feedback

Dear visitors of VodaFest 2010, none of the committe members is a professional event manager and we all learn as we go. We are eager to hear from you to understand what is appreciated by you - our customers, and what is frowned on.

Thank you for filling out the feedback forms distributed throughout the festival site. In order to make the next year's event even better, please, also visit our website and rate your experience in poll at http://bit.ly/9rRjZn and, please, leave a couple of lines for us on the discussion page at http://vodafest.org/discussion

Photos and videos

Although we had a few professional and semi-professional photographers on site and many photos and videos taken by visitors have been already uploaded to Facebook, we are still keen get hold of as much photodocumentation from the festival as possible. We are planning to improve the website design soon and put together a promotional leaflet for potential future visitors and sponsors, too. For that, we are going to need everything there is.

Please, send us everything you took on the day! You can either send an e-mail to info@vodafest.org or link to your photo album at our Facebook page http://on.fb.me/9ValeJ If the files are too big, please, contact us and we'll organize a USB drive or DVD pickup. Thank you!

Your photos may make their way to our photo gallery, like some already have. You can find photos we have gathered so far at http://vodafest.org/gallery-list

What's next

This year's festival is over, but we definitely want to keep the momentum going within the communities. While working on VodaFest 2010, we managed to build quite an infrastructure to advertise the event. We believe it would be unwise to stop using the website http://vodafest.org, newsletter, Facebook page and Twitter account for the benefit of those interested in the Czech and Slovak cultures or just meeting people in general.

After the first VodaFest we also happen to be very well equipped for the upcoming summer's events! We only need to wait a few days for the Sumava grounds to dry and we can put the portable beer tap back to use. We've already started planning a few overnight stays in tents, with Czech and Slovak cooking for everybody, outdoor activities and cartoon watching for kids, and beverage tasting for adults. We'll be back with more details soon, but let us know if you are interested or have any questions.

There are many events happening in different Czech and Slovak communities throughout Victoria this summer. We would like our website to be a central source of information and our communication channels to be the way for everybody to learn about what's on. In case you are running an event of your own, we are more than happy to help with promotion.

17. November

Please, don't forget what an important day today is for Czechs and Slovaks. For many of us, the political situation before this date in 1989 forced us to leave our homes and flee to Australia. For many others of us, the freedom our nations gained after this date made it possible to travel freely and choose Australia as a temporary or a permanent home.