May saw the arrival of the NSW Cake Decorator’s Guild Seminar, held in the lovely town of Merimbula.  A three day extravaganza of demonstrations, food, tips, tricks and shopping!

Merimbula is located halfway between Sydney and Melbourne, this South Coast tourist town is the perfect place to enjoy the beautiful white sand beaches, rainforests, lagoons, and mountains of the South Coast NSW.

Special guests from Tasmania and Melbourne helped round out the many other decorators who gave of their time to demonstrate or help with the organisation.

Demonstrations (to name but a few) included things like 10 flowers to create with a primula cutter, gelatine flowers, how to make a peony, airbrushing techniques, ribbon roses, and much much more.

It was great to meet other decorators from other branches, to chat and trade ideas, thoughts, tips and more with.  A range of ages meant there was always someone to talk to!

The food at the RSL (where the seminar was held) was fantastic from the service down to the desserts!  Friday night bought a buffet meal while Saturday was the masked ball, which was a three course sit down meal.  The one thing that I would have liked to have seen here is on one of the nights it would have been good to be placed randomly at tables so as to have the opportunity to chat with other decorators from other branches, I mean it can’t be that scary we all had at least one thing in common right?  There was plenty to talk about.  But having said that most people were relatively open when you simply went and introduced yourself or asked for questions or help.  I was lucky enough to have one lovely lady even take the time to invite me to her room one evening to actually show me some things that I had been asking questions about.

On top of the ability to buy some goodies from the 4 shops that set themselves up at Seminar, we also received a goodie bag and a nice thick book of all the notes and instructions for each of the dems.

If you are wondering if it was worth attending?  From my perspective definitely.  There was loads to learn and heaps of tips and tricks to pick up.  Were all the dems great… well no but there were enough great and good dems to make up for the ones that might have been better spent getting a cup of coffee.

The Association will be holding their seminar in August, in Sydney.  Can’t find the time or money to attend all week, no worries, there is a day rate so that you can just attend one day, remember UK Cake Decorator and Author Lindy Smith will be demming apparently some things that have never been shown anywhere else before.  And in addition the chance to meet up with other decorators is a great opportunity to learn something you may not yet know!

So you are in Victoria and the Association doesn’t have any branches near you… as with NSW having the Guild, Victoria also has the Victorian Cake Decorating Society.

They have four branches who each have a website.

Eastern Branch – Boronia

Northern Branch – Watsonia

Casey Branch

Town & Country

I don’t know much else than that so check out the websites for more help. If you’d like me to add something please leave a comment or use the Contact page.

So you if you have any association with the Guild, you may have heard the word Seminar being bandied about. This year the Guild are holding theirs in Merimbula.

13th Seminar for the NSW Guild – 3 day Sugarcraft Extravaganza in Merimbula

15th, 16th & 17th May 2009
Merimbula RSL Club
Main St Merimbula

Cost: $330 inclusive of events, lunches, 2 dinner and a themed ball (accommodation is separate)

I do believe you need to be a Guild member to attend so if you’ve been wanting to join it provides a good excuse. All the Guilds from NSW are involved so contact your nearest Guild for more information OR there are booking officer contact details on the Guilds Website Events page.

If you live nearby there are also Daily rates if you don’t want to attend all days.

There’s a branch display, 2 individual competitions and Exhibits on Parade.

Payment is due however, last year they allowed Challenge Competition entries after the closing date, so if you would like to attend do use the contact information (in the Events page link), they can only say no.

The Association are also having a seminar in Sydney in August, you can read about it here.

So you wanted to join the Guild but there isn’t a branch near you or you live in another state. There’s still another option it’s called the Cake Decorators’ Association.

Australian National Cake Decorators’ Association (Not all states have websites, so if you don’t see a link for your state, then contact the ANCDA for state specific information)

Cake Decorators’ Association of NSW

Cake Decorators’ Association of VIC

Cake Decorators’ Association of SA

Cake Decorators’ Association of WA - Perth Branch or North Beach Branch for other branches contact the ANCDA

Branches for NSW include:

Albury, Bankstown, Broken Hill, Chatswood, Coffs Harbour, Coonabarabran, Eastern Suburbs, Far North Coast, Hastings District, Hunter, Inverell, Kyogle, Manning Valley, Muswellbrook, Nambucca Valley, Narrabri, Nepean District, Rylstone, Southern Suburbs, Tamworth, Tweed Valley

Chatswood Branch

Roseville Uniting Church
7 Lord Street, Roseville

31st January
28th March
23rd May
25th July
26th September
28th November

As with the Guild you can attend a meeting before joining, the Association will let you attend 2 or 3 meetings before requiring you to join.

Despite advice to the contrary you can be a member of both the Guild and the Association, after all it’s about Cake Decorating right , the Association’s charter does state in basic terms that if you are a committee member in one you can’t be a committee member in the other.

Do you have the dates of meetings for another area, leave a comment or contact me through the Contact page so I can add them!

If you are interested in joining the Cake Decorators’ Guild of NSW, but aren’t sure what to expect, you can go along to one meeting as a non-member before insurance requirements make it necessary for you to join. You don’t even need to be invited you can just show up, however, it is always nice to go along to one of these and know somebody there! Several of our cake friends go to Guild Meetings at Golden West (Quakers Hill) and Sydney (Concord) Branches, so if you would like to go along to one let me know and I will try to make sure myself or another cake friend is there to greet you hello!

Once joined you are not beholden to that branch, membership entitles you to attend any of the Guild meetings anywhere, particularly handy if you can’t make a meeting one month at one place or if you want to go to meetings more often then once every two months.

Other branches include: Armidale, Parkes / Forbes, West Wyalong, Nareendera / Leeton, Wagga Wagga, Cowra, Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow, Southern Highlands, Goulburn, Cooma, Sapphire Coast, Illawarra & Central Coast.

Despite advice to the contrary you can be a member of both the Guild and the Association, after all it’s about Cake Decorating right , the Association’s charter does state in basic terms that if you are a committee member in one you can’t be a committee member in the other, I imagine the Guild’s Charter might say the same, but I’ve yet to get my hands on one.

If you have a list of meeting dates for 2009 for any of these branches, feel free to leave a comment or use the Contact page and I will add them!

Please also find attached for download a copy of the Sydney Branch Newsletter for February to help you see a little more about the Guild. (Click the word newsletter after this sentence).

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Here are some pictures from some of the demonstrations. There hasn’t been a meeting where I haven’t picked up at least one helpful tip.