Jill Shelton the Festival Director says, “Our aim was to create a festival where people could come along and participate in a wide range of passion tasting workshops, talks, presentations etc for the equivalent value of twenty dollars a session, while experiencing quality entertainment for even less.”

The Passion Tasting Festival has over 30 interactive and content-rich workshops, all carefully selected to give people the opportunity to discover, share and experience a wide variety of passions. Workshops range from living your passion and creative structure, to dynamic storytelling, public speaking, primal dance, singing and much more.

Local and internationally-recognised speakers will reveal how their life experiences have led to the development and pursuit of their particular passions. You will be inspired by speakers such as Dominique Finney, Falu Eyre, Vanessa Hall, Barbara Brewster, Sarah and Chris Pye.

For those who are passionate about the arts, or would love to experience art for the first time, there is a variety of hands-on workshops, an interactive Art Central area and Art Gallery.

A platform is being provided for emerging bands, musicians and entertainers during the day, with soul-stirring professional concerts at night. Friday night is a charity concert with Sulco, Hayden Hack Infusion and French Butler called Smith, and Saturday night De Greer Yindimincarlie, The Twine and OKA.

The Craft market stallholders provide a passionate display of their creative talents to peruse, and for the health conscious there will be a broad mix of gifted energy workers and healers on hand to demonstrate their skills.

Food is one of our greatest passions and festival caterers will fill your stomachs with gourmet tastes and liquid delights.

The 3 day Passion tasting festival is at the Maleny Show grounds on the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland from 26-28 March.

For full program information and ticket sales visit the website at www.passiontastingfestival.com.au or phone:  07 5473 9498.

Left: Tim Donovan with wine glass.

THE BUTCHER, the baker, the cheese, chef and wine maker will all present their creative skills at The Kenilworth Cheese Wine and Food Fest on Easter Saturday, in Kenilworth Town Park.

Curious to know where that glazed ham comes from? Or what to do with the leftover pork hock? Introduce your self to local butchers Bruce and Jimmy and watch them go the whole hog. And a special treat –they will be selling bison beef on the day!

The day-long festival will present award-winning local produce including sumptuous sauces, organic olives, mushrooms, pies, and the famous preservative-free bread from the Kenilworth Bakery.

There will be cooking demonstrations throughout the day including unique tastes from local bush foods. Visitors can sample everything from cream scones to Thai country cooking, all produced with a local spin. The Farm-to-Fork Feast will be offering smoked semi dried tomatoes, beef jerky, tasty wood fired pizzas and Gitsham’s award winning sausages.

Obi Kobi Wagyu will be selling their gold medal-winning Wagyu beef steaks at the Festival.  In addition they will also offer Wagyu beef patties, hand-made Wagyu sausages and Wagyu kebabs for sale.

Other entertainment includes a Great Cheester Egg Hunt at 9.30am (registration at 9am). There’s a cheese rolling contest that kicks off at 9am and a line dancing display. More details: phone Di: 07 5446 0003.

The Divine Divas - regularly support the Variety Club of Queensland by taking part in the annual Variety Club bash into the outback. Here the girls take over a local fire truck. From left: April Adsett, Marion Pearson, Desley Cole and Roslyn Pritchard.

THE DIVINE DIVAS are again supporting the Variety Club of Queensland in presenting Woodstock at Witta on March 13.

This once a year band spectacular is held at the Witta Recreation Club with free entrance for children.

This year amongst the great line-up of bands taking to the stage are The Rain, As the Crow Flies, Jumbo Shack, and the Purebred Hybrids.

All proceeds from this event go to the Variety Club of Queensland which is children’s charity. Entrance fees are adults - $20, high school students $10 and children free. This is a licensed event and there is food at the Club. Gates open 5.30pm and bands start at 6pm.

For tickets to Woodstock at Witta, call Divine Divas: 5494 2776 or 0411 543191.

Peter D. and Warne W. in tool auction mode.

THOSE hard-working Montville ‘Woodies’ are opening their ‘boys’ shed to give the curious a free look around this treasure trove of industry.

Conducted tours by experienced members will take place at regular intervals. Demonstrations of wood carving, turning, pyrography and slabbing are programmed for every half hour. The operation of some of the sophisticated and unusual machinery eg the woodwiz, routers and various size bandsaws are not to be missed.

The sale of used tools in good working order is also one of the highlights. Besides members, the public is also invited to submit tools for sale. Just look at it this way, any surplus tools in your shed could be turned into cash, which you can then use to purchase other tools, or some of the finished products.

Tea, coffee, a sausage sizzle and home made goodies are available all day. A chocolate wheel with valuable wood craft prizes will also be operating, while all day long some excellent woodcraft will be on display, with some for sale. Any items not sold by 11am will be auctioned for 15% commission.

Blackall Range Wood Crafters’ Guild Inc. Contact: Gerry Zwart 5445 7212 or email valgerry@linkt.com.au

The photographic competition is part of the Sunshine Coast Regional Council’s ‘TREELINE’ initiative, celebrating Significant Trees of the Sunshine Coast: www.treeline.org.au

Manager of Discover Eumundi, Wendy Birrell says there are some great prizes up for grabs, including books from Berkelouw Books in Eumundi and market dollars to spend at the Original Eumundi Markets.

“We’re encouraging photographers to submit a digital photograph of a tree on the Sunshine Coast that has personal significance. The possibilities are endless”, she says. Entrants also need to submit a written entry of up to 200 words saying why the tree is important to them.

Entries close 30 April 2010. For further details and entry forms, phone Discover Eumundi on 5442 8762 or email manager@discovereumundi.com.au

The 2010 program features quality films across all genres: comedy, drama, animation documentaries and student films have been selected for their excellence in film making. Amongst the 171 films is Australian actor Bud Tingwell’s last film titled The Last Bottle. Frank Woodley (of Lano & Woodley comedy duo) brings more humour to the program through his delightful short animation Chicken of God (below).

Kat Stewart [Underbelly] appears in a strong supporting role in a beautiful film titled Trampoline and David Wenham delivers a classic performance in a movie titled Glenn Owen Dodds [GOD] which carries the tagline -“Want to know the meaning of life? You’ve got five minutes.” (right)

The festival presents a fantastic family program which includes the stunning animation titled Lost & Found [UK].Narrated by British actor Jim Broadbent, this gorgeous feature film is about a little boy and his unsolicited mission to get a lost penguin back home to Antarctica. Also part of the family program is Luc Jacquet’s first film since March of the Penguins entitled The Fox and The Child: a beautifully shot feature film about a life changing encounter between a fox and a young girl set amongst breathtaking scenery.

Heart of Gold International Film Festival offers special events, documentaries, workshops, seminar programs and the very popular Filmmaker Presents sessions along with its extensive short film program from around the world.

The Heart of Gold festival recruited Malcolm Blaylock as its director. He has directed the St Kilda Film Festival and has also served as a jury member for Interfilm Berlin and Spain’s Short Film Festival Bilbao.

Malcolm commented on the quality of the Heart of Gold “There are so many good films, from all over the world. As I travelled the various film festivals this year I was looking for films that were entertaining and that fitted our unique brief. Regardless of genre, each film had to have somewhere within its premise -no matter how deeply or darkly placed - a positive spin on the world and a positive view of humanity”.

Heart of Gold International Film Festival

Gympie Civic Centre, 11 – 14 March 2010

www.heartofgold.com.au

Auction Item: Kym Barrett "Inner Terrain".

AN INTEGRAL PART of the annual Heart of Gold International Film Festival -Art with Heart -is set to showcase some of the region’s most accomplished and renowned artworks which have been generously donated by participating artists and creators.

To ensure the Exhibition includes something for everyone, this year Art with Heart has widened its scope to include all art forms, allowing artists to use their medium of choice to reflect Heart of Gold themes such as inspiration, creativity, hope and joy. Art with Heart 2010 will feature oil, acrylic and watercolour works on canvas, ceramic/clay sculpture, prints, a wrought-iron gate, 3-D embroidery, hand-crafted jewellery, a hand-crafted wooden seat and mixed-media creations.

Art with Heart will be considering all bids above the reserve, so be quick to avoid disappointment. Only unsold pieces will be auctioned at the Awards Party at the Gympie Civic Centre, Saturday 13 March 2010.

All Art with Heart works will be exhibited at the Gympie Civic Centre throughout the festival as a visual accompaniment to a fantastic film program.

For the catalogue, or to submit a bid, please email: info@heartofgold.com.au or phone 5483 7000.

guitarist/composer Anthony Garcia (top right) join forces to present a unique program of music to be held in the Artspark Australia, 407 Mt Mellum Road Maleny, home of the Ken Hinds Cultural Heritage collection.

The performance will see the world premier of White Notes Between Heaven and Earth, a new work for guitar and didgeridoo by Garcia and Barton inspired by the evocative artwork on display at Artspark and the immense beauty of it’s natural surroundings.

The Hinds gallery, with stunning views of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland and cradled by the D’Aguilar mountain range, is home to the work of some of Australia’s finest indigenous and non-indigenous painters.

William, one of Australias most celebrated didgeridoo players was a star of the 2008 Olympic opening ceremony. He has performed with orchestras around the world.

Australian guitarist and composer Anthony Garcia blends colourful, improvised flair with a masterful classical technique. This passionate improviser can cross from the experimental music scene in New York to early music with the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. He fuses together a wide range of styles from ancient to contemporary from Latin folk to jazz, world rhythms and experimental.

The Events Centre Caloundra Ph: 5491 4240

Online: www.etixdirect.com.au

The Noosa National Park forms part of the Noosa Biosphere. It is now recognised as one of the 553 UNESCO ‘living laboratories’ in 107 countries.

INTERESTED in sustainable development? Heard of Biosphere Reserves? Like to know more about the possibilities? Maleny and District Green Hills Fund (Green Hills) will host a public meeting on Saturday 6 March at 10.30am at the Maleny RSL to present information to the community about the biosphere and its potential value to the Blackall Range.

Green Hills has invited Ben McMullen, Project Manager, Environmental Initiatives with the Sunshine Coast Regional Council to provide an overview of the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization’s (UNESCO) Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme. Mr McMullen will follow with a discussion on the nomination process for the creation of a Biosphere Reserve.

MAB Programme goals have evolved since it was launched in the early 1970’s, though the focus has always been to improve the relationship of people with their environment through research and education.

Today’s Biosphere Reserves are more sophisticated and understandably, much more challenged in their pursuit of the ecological, social and economic dimensions of biodiversity loss and the reduction of this loss.

The Sunshine Coast already has one UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in Noosa which is Queensland’s first Biosphere Reserve and one of the newest for Australia. The Noosa Biosphere Reserve nomination had the support of Local, State and Commonwealth Governments and continues to be supported by Local Council for its day to day operations.

More information: http://www.greenhills.org.au/

The Palmwoods Heritage Community Branch is sponsoring the planting of a new Piccabeen Grove in Federation Park and they will celebrate the local palm on Palm Sunday, with a family parade from the town hall finishing with a picnic in the verdant Federation Park.

Local artists, Linley and Kari, are working together on an artistic feature for the Piccabeen Picnic, combining ceramic sculpture, dance and film projections.

This TreeLine event is an initiative of local artists in association with Palmwoods Progress Association, with funds from Heritage Community Branch and Sunshine Coast Council’s RADF program. The Sunshine Coast Regional Council’s ‘TREELINE’ initiative, celebrates Significant Trees of the Sunshine Coast.

If you want to help celebrate the Palmwoods piccabeen gather at the Palmwoods Hall at 4pm on March 28 with your BYO picnic. For information: www.treeline.org.au or phone 5445 0622.