Sandy McNaughton and Peta Blyth from Opera North West, the non profit organisation who will organise and manage the event, said they were delighted with the initial community response. The pair presented information and fielded questions from representatives of the various Walcha community groups at a morning tea in the Walcha Council chambers before spending the afternoon pounding the pavements to visit local business houses.

“Everyone seems very enthusiastic and we were delighted with the number of people who came along to the morning tea,” said soprano and artistic director Peta Blyth.

“I should have baked more things to eat!”

The Walcha Lions Club, Rotary Club, Quota International, Historical Society, Garden Club and the Country Women’s Assoc-iation were in attendance as was Walcha Together which has been responsible for bringing Co-Opera to perform in the town for the last two years.

Opera North West said they were aware of this other operatic event and intended the Langford concert complement this rather than compete with it. They also offered to promote the Co Opera production scheduled for Walcha in April 2015 to their database.

All the local not for profit organisations at the meeting agreed there were various ways they could provide services to enhance the Langford event while raising money for their own organisations.

It was agreed that following the distribution of a list of products and services required by the organisers another meeting would be held at Langford to allocate tasks to each club.