Christmas in the Park organisers say Boulder will likely be the annual event’s ‘new home’ after great feedback

The organiser of Kalgoorlie-Boulder’s only Christmas Day community event says she believes Boulder will become its new home after “incredible” feedback on the new venue last week. Loopline Park’s extra shade and luscious grass were two huge hits for event-goers at last week’s Christmas in the Park, surpassed only by Osmo Espresso’s coffee van — another first for the annual event. While it appeared to be a somewhat slower event than years before, organiser Sarsha Lander of Golden Community Mile said volunteers still handed out about 760 meals on the day, almost the same as last year. The remaining 100 meals were donated to M25 to hand out to people in need. “It was probably a bit of a slower year, it seemed like there were not as many people as usual, but it was pretty steady throughout the whole day,” she said. “You can never really predict how many people you are going to get. “I think last year was just more noticeable because everyone came at once, whereas this year it was probably around the same amount of people, just steady throughout the day. “Which was good because it meant everyone wasn’t standing around in really long lines all day.” The event was moved to Loopline Park as renovations continue at its more recent home of Kingsbury Park, after originally being moved from Centennial Park. However, Mrs Lander said she would likely look at keeping the event in Boulder even once renovations were complete, as there had been lots of positive feedback about the new venue. “Boulder is probably our new home,” she said. “It was a really great day and a lot of that is thanks to the volunteers we had and I really want to thank them because they were great and made a huge difference, so thank you to them for coming down and giving their time.”