This debt includes money from the city council, the State Government, local firms and individual artists. I wonder if there will be repercussions from this failure?

Will there be less money available in the Ballarat area?

Last year, the Organs of the Goldfields Festival had major problems with funding. The Ballarat City Council granted the festival $15,000, a decrease from previous years, with a letter informing us that would be the last money we would receive as it was going to concentrate on "ceding" funding to start new events.

The festival has never had ongoing funding from the council. Every year an application has to be made with a huge degree of uncertainty. 2020 will be the 25th running of the festival.

In 2019, the income was down which resulted in a loss which was met from our reserves. As one board member pointed out, the shortfall was the amount that our grant from the City Council was reduced. These reserves are dwindling and in the future we will be unable to meet any shortfall. The festival makes a valuable contribution to Ballarat with people consistently attending in January, a very quiet time of the year. The board consists of a majority of volunteers.

The board does not have the money to pay someone to write the applications for grants and without this expertise, the board finds it very difficult as the paper-work to satisfy the council and other organisations offering funding is time-consuming and challenging for volunteers.

The board despairs when the Ballarat-International-Foto-Biennale is given huge ongoing funding for four years, not because they are not a wonderful asset to Ballarat, but because the Organs of the Goldfields Festival is told that the council are supporting ceding funding.

Joyce Currie, Wendouree.