Events and Fundraisers

 

Peter Bassett

 

Peter is a Montville based writer, speaker and publisher specialising in the lives and works of major operatic composers.  He has been associated with the production of some of Wagner’s greatest stage works (the subject of his PhD thesis) and has led forty opera tours around the world.

‘1813 – Wagner and Verdi’ is a lavishly illustrated study of two outstanding contemporaries and the turbulent post-Napoleonic era in which they lived.  It features insightful commentaries and sumptuous artworks drawn from opera houses, museums and private collections. 

In an earlier professional life, Peter served for twenty years in the Australian Diplomatic Service.

Paul Garrety

Paul is the author of five novels and numerous short stories many of which have been published in anthologies. After winning a couple of writing competitions both here and overseas he started writing urban fantasy novels (magic in today’s world) but has been known to stray into crime and more recently has dallied with women’s commercial fiction.

Paul recently re-located to Mapleton with his delightful wife Annie. In addition to writing full-time Paul is a yoga teacher and accredited yoga therapist with Yoga Australia and volunteers as a tutor with U3A to teach Creative Writing at U3A’s USC campus. 

 Andrew Jarrett

Andrew was involved in the sport of tennis for more than 40 years.

Back in the 70’s and 80’s, he played at the major events and in the Davis Cup for Great Britain. Then, as a coach, he worked on the women’s tour around the world, along with the British Olympic teams at Seoul and Barcelona.

Most recently, as the Referee at Wimbledon for 14 years he headed up the officiating of this world famous event. This brought regular contact and occasionally conflict, with all the stars including Federer, Nadal, Djokovic, Williams and Sharapova.

Peter Gamgee

Peter started his adventuring days as a child growing up on a farm outside Beerwah. With the Glasshouse Mountains in his back yard and a few scouting mates he took the opportunity to explore the mountains and get his first taste of adventure. Back in the early sixties very few people climbed the mountains and the tracks were rough. But to make them even more interesting he climbed those mountains several times in the dead of night with and without torches.

For many years his life was busy with work and family and he rarely got the opportunity to further the explorer in him. However in 1997 he attempted a small group climb of Mera Peak in Nepal – 6471 metres above sea level. About 300 metres from the top they had to turn back with some people in the party suffering altitude sickness and the weather as closing in. Peter was still recovering from a serious bout of diarrhoea when he did that climb, losing more than 10% of his body weight along the way. 

In 2006 he backpacked the Kokoda Trail in PNG. At the Isuava memorial on that trail he shared a place during the ANZAC Day ceremony with Kevin Rudd and Joe Hocking. He survived that one OK too!

Since that time his passion for pioneering new trails and helping those in need has taken him to Vietnam, Timor Leste, Kenya, Tasmania, Western Australia, and many times back to PNG.  He has crossed the Owen Stanley Range in PNG on foot 20 times, 13 of those on Kokoda, and the others on even tougher tracks, more remote tracks. One of them he has written about – The Kapa Kapa, or Ghost Mountain Trail.

Peter has plenty of stories to tell of his adventures and of some “near death experiences”. Tonight we may hear a little of his 2020 pre-COVID adventure, and the topic of his second book “In Search of The Flying Dutchman”.

 

 

Recent Events – 2020

2020 Winter Book Sale and Mini Market – The wet and cold weather on Saturday 29 June did little to deter our regular stall holders and customers! Despite the weather it proved to be a successful event!

Mapleton Community Library Trivia – another very successful Trivia event held at the Bowls Club on 21 June. This event sold out soon after it was advertised!

Bunnings Sausage Sizzle – Another successful sausage sizzle was held at Bunnings Maroochydore on Friday 24 May, 2020.

Lovers of Books, held on Valentine’s Day, 2020, was a very successful event, and six local authors gave presentations at the event.

PAST EVENTS

Events that were held during previous years can be viewed on the Past Events page