ChillOut Festival 2011

ChillOut festival is “the biggest and longest-running queer pride event in regional Australia and the largest festival in Hepburn Shire”. Once again in 2011 The Convent Gallery will host a group exhibition in conjunction with the festival’s theme.

The exhibition will showcase over 20 local artists with over 40 works all representing one or more of this year’s themes Bollywood, The Bush or Gay & Lesbian. The exhibition will be on show starting March 11 2011, going through Labour Day Weekend until March 28th 2011.

This year ChillOut’s nominated fund is The Alannah & Madeline Foundation. All commissions on works sold over the weekend will be donated, as well as the artists nominated percentage with some art pieces having the entire piece being donated to charity!

More about the nominated charity:

Every year, ChillOut raises money for a cause that helps support people in the local community. Over the past 13 years, the festival has donated around $150,000 to not-for-profit organisations, including schools, hospitals, volunteer fire brigades and wildlife shelters.

This year, ChillOut is proud to be partnering with The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, a national charity keeping children safe from violence, to promote the upcoming roll-out of eSmart in Daylesford schools.

This is the third time the festival and the Foundation have worked together. In 2008, the Foundation’s Better Buddies Framework was introduced to all Hepburn Shire primary schools and in 2009, ChillOut and the Foundation joined forces to launch ‘Buddies for Wildlife’ - a program to encourage children to learn the values of empathy and respect through caring for each other and for animals.

The impact of intimidation and harassment through websites, social media, Twitter, instant messaging and texting can be devastating.

Developed by The Alannah and Madeline Foundation, eSmart is a whole-school approach to embracing technology’s benefits and reducing students’ exposure to risk. eSmart equips everyone in the school community with the skills they need for the smart, safe and responsible use of technology.

The money raised by ChillOut will go towards further development & implementation of esmart, and to ensure this important initiative can be embraced by all schools in our local area, and support community awareness on cybersafety and cyberbullying.

eSmart is the result of 18 months of research and development. It takes a behaviour and social change approach, similar to the very successful SunSmart and Quit campaigns.

ChillOut will be raising funds from the sale of auction items at the Slowest Lunch @ Sault Restaurant on Friday 11th March & by event donations throughout the weekend. We ask for your help in making eSmart a reality in our local area.
All donations above $2 are tax deductible.

For more information about this community appeal, please visit the ChillOut website or visit The Alannah and Madeline Foundation website: www.amf.org.au/cybersafety