Mission Beach Community Cassowary Festival
  • 2021
    • Djiru Country
    • Festival Purpose
    • Cassowary People Workshop
    • School Kids artwork
    • Drumming of Cassowaries parade
    • Dress, Black, Red and Blue
    • Stripey's tent
    • Queenie the cassowary
    • Entertainment
    • Messages
    • Displays/Stalls
    • Our supporters
    • Stall registration >
      • Environment Displays
      • Market Stalls
      • Food Stalls
      • Join the fun
    • 2019 >
      • 2019 PROGRAM
      • Photo Gallery 2019
      • About the 2019 festival >
        • Mapping Fundraiser
        • Wasted art rubbish fish
        • Messages
        • FORUM
        • IN THE MEDIA 2019 >
          • media releases 2019
        • Sponsors 2019
      • 2018 >
        • PROGRAM 2018 >
          • Displays and Stalls 2018
          • Music
          • IN THE MEDIA 2018 >
            • Media Releases
            • Art Projects >
              • Gunduy Midja
              • Juergen and Stella Freund
              • The Cassowary Dress
              • Festival sculptures 2018
              • Mission Beach School choir
              • Bunting
          • 2017 >
            • Program 2017
            • Cassowary Sculpture Workshops
            • Media 2017
            • Thank you Ceremony
            • Kids Care
            • Trevor Proud Prints
  • Contact

- PROGRAM-

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All profits and donations  during the festival will be used for mapping of cassowary corridors within the northern section of Mission Beasch.
FIND OUT MORE ON OUR FUNDRAISER PAGE 

​A Cassowary Theme
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We have a purpose!
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It's all the the planning!
Every little bit helps. 
Your donation will go toward  finishing the cassowary corridor mapping at Mission Beach.  Go to our fundraising page. 
Special guest
​Di Queen

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Well known Cairns Jazz singer /entertainer Di Queen will be roving the festival encouraging participation  in the many activities being held during the day
Lara the Clown
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No event in the Cassowary Coast would be complete without Lara the Clown. Lara  enthralls the children with her antics and lifelike puppets.
Roadside signs designed by Mission Beach School kids
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When Mission Beach puts on an event,  the local school kids get to work.  They design signs to place along the access roads to alert drivers they are travelling through cassowary country and to be  extra aware of their speed and to watch out for cassowaries crossing the roads.  


Gunduy Midja
Art installation
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Artists Leonard Andy (Djiru Traditional owner) and Nina Dawson collaborate to create a  traditional shelter (Midja) with a with a cassowary twist. The installation will be open for the public to 'walk inside the cassowary' and learn about the Djiru culture.



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David White
Solar Whisper  Daintree River Cruises tour guide, 
One of David's 'Wasted Art' rubbish bin sculptures  will be on show at the festival.
 "Through appreciation of  our natural beauty and wildlife comes  protection. To  protect  our wildlife we have to think about our waste and where it goes Rubbish art gets peoples  attention  and makes them think. 




Great Prizes!!
Best cassowary costumes
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Mission Beach - naturally
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"The Mission Beach Community is proud to share our unique place with you in celebration of the cassowary and nature.

Please slow down, watch out for cassowaries while driving (especially approaching a bend or crest in the road).

We look forward to your company. 
​Enjoy your time at our special place where two world heritage areas meet". 
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​The Cassowary Festival Steering committee 
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​Thursday 19 September 2019

​6:30 - 8pm
C4 Theatrette 
visitor Centre
Porters Promenade Mission Beach

6 : 30 pm
Drinks and nibbles

7 : 00 pm

To Kill a Cassowary'
Play reading by Laurie Trott


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​Retired bulldozer driver Amos Hardy is crook. He desperately wants to protect his precious rainforest block, his ‘atonement’, on the shores of Floriade Bay, gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, from developers. Leading the charge is his estranged daughter Paula. She cannot see the natural value and beauty of the place for the potential dollar signs reflecting off the glistening waters of the Coral Sea. She wants to clear the land and build a high-end gambling tourist resort. But first she has to get it. Over Amos’ dead body!
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This fresh, original comedy is recognisably set in Far North Queensland. It is embedded with questions about inheritance and legacy, about caring for land, the environment and relationships, and respecting and acknowledging the right of other creatures to share the same habitat as us. Central to the story is the local Southern Cassowary, a species from around 30 million years ago, that survived more than 50,000 years of Indigenous occupation and now, after just 200 years of European population, is Endangered. It is also about the expectations around inheritance – should we expect to inherit from our parents?
Why? Is it incumbent upon each of us to leave the planet, society and culture – the world – in a better state for our children and our children’s children? And what of the unintended and unwanted intergenerational legacies – the ‘sins of the fathers’, and the mothers?


Friday 20 September

C4 Theatrette 
visitor Centre
Porters Promenade Mission Beach
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FREE ENTRY
​5 : 30 - 7 : 30 pm

5 : 30 pm 
Drinks and nibbles

6 :  00 pm​

'Mission Beach naturally - a magic place'
Video Launch with  Stella and Juergen Freund 


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Internationally acclaimed  wildlife  photography duo Stella and Juergen Freund  will launch  their  video  created  for the 'Mission Beach naturally - A Magic Place'  song written  by the Mission Beach school kids and performed  at the  Queens baton Relay  in 2018.  The video has been made possible with a Regional Arts Development Fund.
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Listen to Mission Beach naturally - a magic place' sung by the Mission Beach school kids .

6 : 30 pm

Screening of National Geographic documentary 'Dino Bird'
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Natural history documentary makers  Dan Hunter and Ed Saltau were in  Far  North Queensland to film the cassowary for this  National Geographic documentary on the cassowary. Features  footage showing never seen before behaviour of our region's endangered icon, the cassowary.
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Watch trailer
Proudly sponsored by ​
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​Saturday 21 September
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Festival day in the park   
From 9am - 4pm

Ulysses  Park
Porters Promenade Mission Beach
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6 : 00 - 8 : 00 am


Stalls and marquees set up

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Displays and information from groups and individuals working with the environment, particularly wildlife will be set up toward the beach. 

Market stallholders will be showcasing local homegrown and sustainable products  and join the spirit of the festival by decorating themselves, their stalls or their produce with the 'celebrating cassowaries and nature' theme. Limited only by imagination!!!



Time TBA

Drum n Culture
Drum Circle and African Gourd Harp – Workshops

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Albert and Hiro will be coming to share the enchanting vibes of their handmade African Gourd Harps and African drums through a series of relaxed workshops or drum circles which will be happening spontaneously throughout the day, located just outside their stall where they will be selling their handmade instruments as well. 
“Everyone’s invited to join us for this - especially for those who swear they can’t play any music”
 
 
Albert

Drums and African Gourd Harps are supplied – OR bring your own drum and join the fun. Albert and Hiro are honoured to be joining our community in the name of cassowary awareness

9 : .00 am - 9 :4 5 am

Doc and JB -
​Word up Doc​
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​​​John Brown is a local artisan, musician and songwriter whose strong connections to the environment and wildlife are reflected in his music and life.
Doc is described as Far North Queensland barefoot beach blues whose music is continuously influenced by the characteristics of our local landscape.  Together they will be bringing some original, nature inspired tunes, amongst a mix of songs bearing a folk influence.


10 : 00 am

Parade entrance​
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From 10 : 00 am

​​Stripey's Tent Activities 
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From 10 : 00 am - 2 : 00pm

Stacey Sparkles Face Painting 
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​Introduced with the school kid's song 'Mission Beach Naturally - A Magic Place'
The 'Drumming of Cassowaries' parade will  start at the Mission Beach Village Green at 9.15 and reach the stage at 10am.
The life size sculptures of cassowaries and other  Cassowary Coast  creatures sculptures will be on display in the park throughout the day. (If you would like to join the parade with your own creation please contact the  Festival Committee [email protected]

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​A large marquee will be set up with lots of activities all day for the little kids, big kids and even bigger kids!!







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FREE  face painting by Stacey Sparkles

10. : 15 am

​MC - About the festival 
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​Mel Bowman Finn will introduce the festival with all her inimitable enthusiasm

10. : 20am

Welcome to Country
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10 : 30 am




​A Djiru Traditional Owner representative will deliver a Welcome to Country
Arrival and welcome to CAFNEC Wilderness Bike Tour
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Each year  the Cairns and Far North Centre (CAFNEC) hold a  unique bike tour  which takes riders over 400kms over 8 days through spectacular scenery including waterfalls, gorges, rainforest and open forest – hard to access country that many locals have not seen.
The  event  is a charity fundraiser for the important work CAFNEC does representing the conservation community.
They will call in on the way to the first leg of their journey which will begin at  Murray Falls.
More information can be found here.

10 : 35 am

Gypsy Hips
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​We are the ‘Gypsy Hips’  tribal belly dancing group. We dance together at Mission Beach State School every Tuesday evening. My name is Carmen Pedroni and I started the Gypsy Hips bellydancing group six years ago. Our group is friendly and fun and we dance because it is great exercise and we enjoy the connection with the other women in our group. Occasionally we dance at festivals and events.
 

10 : 50 am

​Coral Coast Collective
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​Choral Coast Collective are a group of local Mission Beach musicians who have a passionate connection to the rainforest, mountains and the ocean of the Cassowary Coast. This passion is represented through original music and some borrowed tunes that celebrate the environment and its conservation. With a solid bass of guitar and drums and layered with upbeat rhythms, strong vocals, violin and saxophone, the music of the Choral Coast Collective traverses various soundscapes, reflecting the spirit of the local area.

11 : 45 am 

​Penny Bell
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​Local singer and songwritter, Penny Bell, plays folk rock songs, using vocals and ukulele to express her love and support for the natural world.

12 :  15 pm

Messages
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Qld Enviornment Minister
Hon Leeanne Enoch
Photo Courier Mail
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Peter Garrett
Photo: Brisbane Powerhouse

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Threatened Species Commissioner
​Dr Sally Box
Photo The Australian
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​Some of our invited guests who are not able to attend, have sent us  recorded messages to be played at the festival.

12 : 30 pm

Sustainability forum - a chat about our future
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Ellie Bock 

​Ellie Bock
Ellie is a professional working in the area of sustainable cross-cultural land and sea, cultural and natural resource management and planning for over 15 years.
Her experience leads her to believe that many of the solutions to our species’ sustainability crisis lie fairly and squarely with us as a globally networked civilisation of humanity.
Ellie is based in the central Wet Tropics bioregion of northeast Australia. Growing up in Townsville before heading off overseas to volunteer and then study, later on working down south before heading home to the tropics, Ellie remembers well what the Reef and Rainforest were like decades ago.
Since that time much has changed both within our region and beyond, to the point where the sustainability of the planet as a home for ourselves - and all of the other species we co-inhabit this planet with - is now under serious question.
For Ellie one of the critical questions of our time is: How can we use our considerable ingenuity, curiosity and diverse knowledges to build in sustainability, rather than just seeing sustainability as a means to an end or as a spanner in the works of “business as usual”.
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​Peter Salleras

​As third generation local farmers, Peter & Alison Salleras' passion for the natural environment is evident as they share their knowledge of fruit farming, rainforest and heritage. Fruit Forest Farm is an award winning "Wet Tropics World Heritage Neighbour."

Fruit Forest Farm trialled and introduced a unique and innovative style of growing exotic fruit trees in the tropics after two damaging cyclones affected the area. The ‘Tatura’ trellising method has since been adopted by other farmers in cyclone affected areas.
Peter, Alison and their team are continually fine tuning innovative, productive and sustainable practices.
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Nicole Nash

​​Nicole Nash

Not just a campaigner, Nicole Nash is the founder and manager of the  Last Straw on the GBR  movement. 
The Last Straw on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) is the Official Campaign © targeting plastic straws in venues around the GBR. We are working with Citizen’s of the GBR, and The Last Straw Australia to achieve our goal of making the GBR region plastic straw free and reducing plastic pollution entering the reef. At The Last Straw, we believe ‘there’s no excuse for single use,’ and that each and everyone of us have a social responsibility to protect our environment, which includes reducing our use of plastics. We encourage everyone to BYO straw, there are stainless steel, silicone, bamboo and even glass that are reusable these days.
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​Leonard Andy
Mission Beach artist and  Djiru Traditional Owner.
"It's no use planning ahead just 3 or 4 years, we need a 100 year plan"

1 : 10pm

​JB 
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​John Brown, maker of  Gidgee Guitars, is a local musician and songwriter whose strong connections to the environment and wildlife are reflected in his music and life.

1 : 55 pm

Best Costume
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​​Prizes will be awarded for the best costumes with categories for, adults,  juveniles and  stripeys.

2 : 05 pm

Address by local Police

2 : 10pm

Pauly P
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​Imagine blurring the lines between Reggae, Dub, Funk, Rock and Hip Hop! One man Army looping wizard Pauly P is setting the world on fire with his signature blend of live looping.
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Lurking behind these irresistible beats is a strong social consciousness, and Pauly’s positive vibes and pertinent lyrical content create the ultimate ear-candy with a conscience.

2 :  50pm

Drawing of raffles

3 :  10pm

Cedar Vines
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Brent Cook

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​Ross Slight


​Mission Beach locals Brent Cook and Ross Slight will be feature musos entertaining guests with their own blend of tunes in the name of Mission Beach Naturally.

Brent Cook has had a strong resonance with Mission Beach and its surrounds for over 3 decades. Whilst sharing his deep connection with this environment, Brent's open expression with old folk and alternative rock influence, accompanied by the solid beats of Ross Slight … will bring a set sure to entertain.
​Sunday 22 September
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Coalescence
Cassowary Festival Tree Planting
From  9 : 00 am 
636 El Arish Mission Beach Road 
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Coalescence and Sprout are two outdoor music events with an environmental twist. We describe ourselves as “eco-conscious” because we try to centre the environment as the first priority with everything we do. We have very similar visions for our events:
    · Provide workshops that encourage awareness of ecology and sustainable practices.
    · Conduct research into what impacts are cause by our events.
    · Hold ourselves accountable for the impacts of our event, and seek more effective methods of conducting future events.
     · All while showcasing some of the best music and performances that FNQ has to offer, alongside a few interstate guests, at a family-friendly community gathering.
So in a single sentence:

WE AIM TO THROW A FUN ALL-AGES SHIN-DIG THAT DOESN'T COST THE EARTH: NOT FINANCIALLY, NOR SOCIALLY, NOR ECOLOGICALLY!
Each year, Coalescence holds several tree-planting and maintenance days in Cassowary Country, replanting habitat to help out our prehistoric flightless forest friends. As a bonus event at this year’s Mission Beach Community Cassowary Festival, Coalescence are hosting a tree-planting day on Sunday 22nd of September. After sleeping off Saturday’s festivities, show your support for the Cassowary by joining us in planting some native rainforest trees! We’ll be meeting at Roger’s place around 9am:
636 El Arish Mission Beach Rd, Djiru, QLD. (Check it on the map: https://binged.it/2YRXUp1)
                More info  https://www.facebook.com/events/3013444908695698/
                Read more about Coalescence  ​http://coalescence.earth
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​MORE PEOPLE - MORE FUN!
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Please spread the word - ​like and share! 


Leave only footprints and build memories to last a lifetime.
​Read more about why Mission Beach is special here.


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Proudly supported by
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Contact 
[email protected]
​
0414 402 315


  • 2021
    • Djiru Country
    • Festival Purpose
    • Cassowary People Workshop
    • School Kids artwork
    • Drumming of Cassowaries parade
    • Dress, Black, Red and Blue
    • Stripey's tent
    • Queenie the cassowary
    • Entertainment
    • Messages
    • Displays/Stalls
    • Our supporters
    • Stall registration >
      • Environment Displays
      • Market Stalls
      • Food Stalls
      • Join the fun
    • 2019 >
      • 2019 PROGRAM
      • Photo Gallery 2019
      • About the 2019 festival >
        • Mapping Fundraiser
        • Wasted art rubbish fish
        • Messages
        • FORUM
        • IN THE MEDIA 2019 >
          • media releases 2019
        • Sponsors 2019
      • 2018 >
        • PROGRAM 2018 >
          • Displays and Stalls 2018
          • Music
          • IN THE MEDIA 2018 >
            • Media Releases
            • Art Projects >
              • Gunduy Midja
              • Juergen and Stella Freund
              • The Cassowary Dress
              • Festival sculptures 2018
              • Mission Beach School choir
              • Bunting
          • 2017 >
            • Program 2017
            • Cassowary Sculpture Workshops
            • Media 2017
            • Thank you Ceremony
            • Kids Care
            • Trevor Proud Prints
  • Contact