From the editor's desk

Blowing good fortune will be the brass section of Beaten Bodies, but it is the Eurobodalla community, from north to south, that will make or break this ambitious rebadging.

Each year, for several years, the hard-working volunteer committee of the original Moruya Jazz Festival had threatened to resign. 

Pleading exhaustion, illness and just plain ageing bones, the stalwarts kept appealing for new blood.

Each year, not enough arrived, so each year, the same faces kept the much-loved show on the road.

Finally after last year’s festival, the committee folded.

Firstly, though, it threw itself on the mercy of the Moruya Business Chamber.

Thankfully, Stephen Matthews, who cheerfully admitted what he knew of music could be written on a pub coaster, stepped up with other willing members to ensure a festival would be held in 2014.

Thankfully again, someone who did know something of music, the enthusiastic Moruya High School graduate Virginia Quirk, also threw her hat in the ring.

She had spent several years organising live shows up and down Australia’s east coast for her living.

That she had returned to her family stamping ground of Congo, with a fat contact book of musicians to draw on, was harmonious timing.

She showed up at a meeting after reading a story in the Bay Post/Moruya Examiner and said: “Can I help?”

Yes, the mix of music is different.

No, not everyone will like all of it.

But, my goodness, has this rookie crew not made a fist of their first attempt, with some huge names, playing in a huge tent, on the banks of our hugely lovely Moruya River?

It’s a huge effort - and it deserves our dancing support.