Their involvement started through their association with the Deniliquin Motorcycle Association, and grew when Mr Clapham became a member of the Ute Muster board five years later, and eventually its chairman.
For their assistance over the last 10 years, the pair was presented with the 2019
Community Champions Award at a special chairman’s reception on Friday afternoon.
The Clapham’s happily accepted the award, but were quick to acknowledge all the other volunteers they feel are just as deserving of recognition.
‘‘It’s wonderful to be recognised but you don’t do it to be recognised,’’ Mr Clapham said.
‘‘You do it because you want to, and you do it because you hope it’ll bring a lot of people joy and pleasure.
‘‘The recognition’s nice, but it really belongs to a lot more people.’’
While the headlining concerts are a drawcard for many Musterers, Mr Clapham said the event is holistic in its entertainment. He said that is why it is so successful.
‘‘The crowd is the best part of the event by far,’’ he said.
‘‘The crowd provides most of the colour and they also provide all of the atmosphere; without the crowd you don’t have an event.
‘‘The current committee can provide the mechanism to bring people here but the reality is that it’s the crowd that provides 99 per cent of the entertainment.
‘‘It’s fun, it comes in all shapes and sizes and generally they’re all very good people.’’
The Claphams say they have enjoyed being involved and seeing the amount of work that goes into putting on the famed event each year.
‘‘There’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes,’’ Mr Clapham described.
‘‘When you’re on the board at this stage on the Friday (after 4pm) you start running on adrenaline for about 48 hours and not a lot of sleep, you just hope that all of the work you’ve done leading up to it will work. Nine times out of 10 it works.
‘‘The committee, the board and the volunteers work incredibly hard in the time leading up to it, to the 48 hours during the event and the really difficult part is to maintain the enthusiasm and involvement in the tidy up.’’
Despite the clean up that’s left behind, Mr Clapham was still adamant that ‘‘everybody enjoys this, from start to finish’’.
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