The Wollongong Eisteddod has been an institution for fostering young performers for the last 127 years, yet it's solely run by volunteers.
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President Tony Purdon said sadly the pandemic meant a lot of their workforce decided it was time to retire and left quite a hole to fill, although "a new breed" of committee members were ready to breathe new life into the old girl.
A life of dance - and a husband along the way - has led Rowena Sanderson to become an adjudicator co-ordinator and dance co-ordinator. She wanted to "give back" to the performance community after all the years she and her family spent upon the stage.
"My family has been involved either performing or as dance teachers since the '50s," she said. "My mum was a dancer, and me and my sister dancers and dance teachers.
"I actually married one of my dancing friends - my husband [Tony] was a competitor in the eisteddfod. I've known him since I was three years old ... and we've been married 35 years."
Mrs Sanderson said she grew up with Tony and each of their families becoming friends, before dancing at the same studio then doing amateur theatre together.
She hoped to bring "a bit of a fresh look" to the competition and "get the momentum going" again after a year's downtime thanks to the pandemic.
School teacher Catherine Sutton has coached many of her student choirs to perform in the competition, as well as one of her daughters (who now teaches singing in Melbourne).
Her younger daughter is a ballerina and also competed, going on to perform in New York, but has returned home to study Elite Performance at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts.
"The experience both my girls got ... has really set them on a path for their future careers," Mrs Sutton said. "Now I'm an empty nester and I always said 'when there's no longer eisteddfods to take them to, I'll help out'."
She said there were very few opportunities for young people to perform as Australia was a sporting nation, and felt the eisteddfod was really valuable to the performing arts.
"I would love it to get to that stage where it was financially viable to [have the competition at] the WIN Entertainment Centre and make it big again," she said. "It's a real team effort to make this happen. Without this committee and the volunteers it just wouldn't go ahead."
Teacher and owner of VoiceWorx Trish Belcher competed in the eisteddfod as a child, as did her children and her students.
"I think it gives you the confidence to then move onto other roles and other jobs and a lot of professions," Mrs Belcher. "It'd be nice to encourage others to come along and join us because we have a lot of fun - it's hard work - but we have social time together and it's nice to be part of a team.
"And it's nice to see little kids succeeding, they may not be the best but as long as they're doing their best, it's really lovely."
The Wollongong Eisteddfod continues through June and July, with hundreds of young people competing in an array of categories such as drama, musical theatre, singing, ensembles, instrumental solos and dance.