Donna Jones
The Muster General Store is an institution and has a reputation for some of the best tucker around.
That’s hardly surprising when you learn it’s the dedicated ladies from the QCWA in charge.
This year is the third year the Imbil QCWA has been spearheading the volunteer efforts to keep the general store, with all the different products stocked, and of course food, ready to serve the tens of thousands of people who migrate to the Muster site to ‘live’ for a week or two.
Each day, a core group heads out to the site from 7.30am to open the store and run it from 8am to 5pm, and they’ve been doing it since the Monday before last (12 August) and they’ll be there until the following Sunday (1 September).
Marina Taylor from the Imbil Branch said it’s not a massive money spinner, but the community exposure is worth all the effort.
“It’s about getting our name out, which is what it was all about originally,” she said.
Marina is a former branch president and she and branch secretary Rae Ensor are just two of the around seven members currently active within the Imbil Branch, and they would love to see their numbers grow.
As running the general store is such a big job, other branches help with a collaborative effort to keep things chugging along.
“All the branches around help,” Marina said.
“Janice comes from Wondai and we’ll have the Gympie girls in at the end of the week.
“We collaborate and come from everywhere,” she said.
And she does mean everywhere, with Denise Straub always keen to put up her hand each year.
“Our volunteer from Taree, New South Wales, Denise, it’s her third Muster,” said Marina.
“Every year she starts nagging me about May, ‘Are we still right for Muster?”
