Creative Clunes is an incorporated charity, that is included in the Australian Register of Cultural Organisations (ROCO).
Our events and activities:
- Clunes Booktown Festival (annually)
- Booktown on Sunday – monthly author talks (May-Nov each year, podcasted)
- Clunes Ceramic Awards (biannually, next in 2026)
- Social @ the Station – active seniors social club/movie nights (twice a week)
- Youth band rehearsal space (2-3 times a week)
- Hosting food vans which bring alternate cuisines to town when local venues are closed (Sun/Mon weekly)
- Co-working and community bookable spaces across two buildings
- Managing clunesvic.org.au Tourism and Information website since the Clunes Development and Tourism Association ceased
- We are the only organisation in Clunes with Deductible Gift Recipient charity status
Purpose
Creative Clunes aims to connect, inspire and engage communities through books and story.
Vision
Creative Clunes is a vibrant rural hub that supports making, telling and sharing stories in all art forms.
Mission
Creative Clunes will develop a focused network through which writers and other arts practitioners are supported, seed ideas and collaborate. Through the exchange of stories, we build regional identity and wellbeing, empowering community to respond to environmental, social, cultural and economic challenges.
We encourage stories to emerge from individuals or from collaborations, across artforms and in diverse media (from podcasting to quilting) and from folk of all ages, genders, abilities and backgrounds.
Values
Collaborative, Equitable, Joyful, Responsive
Clunes is located 36 km north of Ballarat (30 minutes by car), and 142 km north-west of Melbourne (90 minutes by car). It is the first accredited Booktown in the Southern Hemisphere and Victoria’s first gold town.
There are a number of cafes, a bakery, confectionary, photographer, gift and antique shops, along with an art gallery and an Australian natural fibres shop. We also have a gourmet greengrocer, butcher, delicatessen, restaurant and wine bar. The service station and the local supermarket are open 7 days a week and an ATM is available in the main street. The hotel serves evening meals Wednesday to Sunday.
It is a vibrant town of approximately 2000 people who collaborate to achieve the best of small town living. There are a number of active social and sporting groups and many facilities including a swimming pool, ovals, petanque piste, netball/basketball courts, tennis courts as well as a golf course.
Education is an important aspect of Clunes’ development with a primary school, regional campus of Wesley College and an adult learning centre at the Clunes Neighbourhood House, and a public library.
There is a strong connection with our rural community celebrated in the Annual Clunes and District Agricultural Show which has been running for over 150 years. The Show occurs on the third Saturday of November.
The town is located in an expanding and award-winning wine growing area. There are three wineries in close proximity to the town.
'Remember
The
Past'
In 2007, the first Booktown (Booktown for a Day) was held attracting over 6,000 visitors. Since then a two day festival, Clunes Booktown Festival has been held annually. Over 100 booktraders from around Australia bring stock to the town and set up shop for the weekend. Street entertainment, food and wine, music and writer’s talks add to the festivities.
In April 2012, Clunes gained International Organisation of Booktowns membership, becoming the 15th International Booktown and the only Booktown in Australia.
Our most recent Booktown, in March 2024, saw around 12,000 people come to Clunes and surrounding regions.
For its size there are a high proportion of published writers currently living in Clunes, including J.P. Pomare, Mark Ogge, Pam Adams, Dr Tess Brady, Andrew Masterson, Christine Rowe, Andrew Reeves and Keir Reeves.
Clunes is also home to a vast array of creative and artistic professionals such as the sculpture artist Tom Ripon, visual theatre collaborators Ken Evans and Rebecca Russell, potter June Johnstone, abstract artist Chris O’Donnell, and Christy Flaws and Luke O’Connor founders of physical theatre company Asking for Trouble.
The town has regularly been used as a backdrop for a number of films and TV series, most famously for the first in the Mad Max film franchise, as well as the recent HBO series of Picnic At Hanging Rock; the ABC TV series Tomorrow When The War Began, the Ned Kelly film starring Heath Ledger, STANS series Bloom and True History of the Kelly Gang , a British-Australian biographical western film which has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2019.
We respectfully acknowledge the Dja Dja Wurrung People, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we meet, learn and teach.
We pay our respect to their Elders – past, present, and emerging.
We recognise that Indigenous sovereignty has never been ceded.