THE Stawell Gift is winding down, with athletes and spectators alike packing up and heading home.
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But the dedicated members of the Stawell Athletic Club, with additional volunteers, will stay at Central Park longer than the rest to pack up.
It looks like a huge effort but club secretary Scotney Hayter said the job will be "90 per cent complete" by the end of Easter Monday.
"The primary will clean up will take about two hours, straight from the time the last race finishes," he said.
"The whole arena itself, by six o'clock tonight, will be clear.
"That will just leave a little bit of stuff from the outside of the arena - media boxes up in the grandstand, corporate marquees, that kind of thing which will be cleaned up in the next couple of days.
"Northern Grampians Shire has been great - they've set up the tents on the hill and they will also pack them up as well."
Mr Hayter said the speed was a matter of necessity.
"We're all volunteers so most of us are back to work tomorrow," he said.
"There's not going to be a great deal of manpower around to help clean up beyond that.
"We do have a lot of manpower here on the evening and it's amazing how much you can get done in a couple of hours."
It couldn't be done without the volunteers.
"You're probably talking about an extra 20 or so volunteers who pitch in and help at the end of the day," he said.
Mr Hayter also said that the number of patrons doing the right thing made the effort easier.
"99 per cent of our patrons are fantastic and we've got a lot of bins around," he said.
"At the end of each day the Swifts Football Club come through and clean up any rubbish that's around and put the bins over to be emptied."
Athletic club life member Robert Irvine said it was a "massive effort" but having entire families involved made a difference.
"All of our families are involved," he said.
"I'm here, my wife is here, our son is the treasurer, our grandson is doing the scoreboard from the tent, his mum's upstairs entertaining, and our daughter is up here helping me with the sashes and presentations.
"So if you have one person you're probably doubling or quadrupling the number of people involved."
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