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From 1983 to 1987 oyster festivals were again held, but as a component of annual spring festivals, which were staged under different names and were held over varying periods of time, ranging from 38 days to 106 days. The oyster festivals were organised by various bodies and ran for between two and nine days.[203]
In 1988 a sub-committee of Merimbula Area Promotions organised a Merimbula Oyster Festival which ran from 30 September to 2 November, not as part of that year’s Sapphire Coast Spring Festival.[204]
The sub-committee promoted it as ‘[t]he 10th annual Merimbula Oyster Festival’, which was not strictly correct because there had not been an oyster festival in 1982.[205] The logo that was used (see Image 9.1) was adapted from the oyster caricature of the 1980 and 1981 festivals.
Image 9.1 1988 Merimbula Oyster Festival logo.[206]
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There was no oyster festival in 1989 and no oyster festivals were held again either in their own right or as part of the spring festivals that continued to be held.[207] A proposal in 2009 to hold an oyster festival did not eventuate.[208]
The benefits of the Oyster Festivals in the promotion of tourism and commerce were recognised when, in 1988, the Merimbula Area Committee, on behalf of the community, nominated Susan Fane as News Achiever for her contributions to the organisation and running of the festivals.[209]
Susan Fane was the only person to have been a member of the three Merimbula Oyster Festival Committees that organised the festivals in 1979, 1980 and 1981, and donated the Oyster Festival Monument to the community in 1979 (see list of committee members here).
An article in a local newspaper in 1991 regarding the need to monitor the water quality in the area’s oyster-farming estuaries concluded by saying:
Merimbula was once very well known for its oysters and for about five years in the late 1970’s (sic) was the focus of the Oyster Festival which was later absorbed by the Spring festival.[210]
Following its involvement in the 1981 festival, and mention on the cover page of the Merimbula View Club’s recipe book (see Photograph 8.14), the Oyster Festival Monument, Merv the World’s Largest Oyster, was on the public stage a few more times before, apparently, slipping into obscurity.
In a photograph that appeared in a local newspaper in 1982 of new employee Denise Channon standing outside the Tourist Information Centre, the monument is seen in its stand near the entrance door (see Photograph 9.1).[211]
9.1 Monument outside the Tourist Information Centre, April 1982, with new employee Denise Channon.[212]
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During the 1987 Sapphire Coast Spring Festival the monument was on the float carrying the Merimbula Oyster Festival Princess Leanne Turnbull, and was described as ‘the biggest oyster in the world’ (see Photograph 9.2).[213]
9.2 Monument on float carrying Merimbula Oyster Festival Princess Leanne Turnbull, November 1987.[214]
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During the 1988 Merimbula Oyster Festival one local newspaper reported that ‘Merv The Merimbula Oyster was seen at most events just keeping an interested eye on happenings around town’.[215] The logo for the 1988 festival was a caricature of an oyster called Merv, the name that the monument had acquired (see Image 9.1).
