Cowra Japanese Garden Welcomes New Manager

The Cowra Japanese Garden has welcomed Cowra local Margaret Davidson as its new Manager, appointing her to the position on the 26th July.

Ms Davidson has replaced former Manager Shane Budge, and comes into the role from a very strong marketing background, having spent a number of years in the UK working in the field.

Ms Davidson is from Cowra originally, and left in 1996 to complete arts studies at the ANU in Canberra.

She then travelled to the UK for a holiday but ended up staying there permanently.

She worked in a number of roles in the UK in London and bath, including financial research, and marketing for vintage clothing, publishing and film.

Eventually she returned to Australia, working in Adelaide before coming back home to Cowra.

Her work gave her great experience in marketing and social media, and combined with her love of art, she said this is what made her suitable for her new role.

“I love the Garden. It’s always been lovely. I came back and realised how special it was, and that it’s a world class facility that we take for granted,” she said.

“It’s a special place for a small country town, and the works of art in the Cultural Centre are world class”.

With the Garden arguably being Cowra’s best known tourist attraction, Ms Davidson said she did not plan on making sweeping changes at the Garden, but said that she would working on promoting the facility more to make sure that all Australians know about it.

“I would like to try to add more items to the Cultural Centre and make sure the items we have here are well known,” she said.

“Some of the items we have here, there are only a few in the world, and I’d love to tell the stories of them.”

Meanwhile, the Garden’s big annual festival, Sakura Matsuri, is just around the corner, happening on the 24th September this year.

It will be the first main event at the Garden Ms Davidson is tasked with organising, and she said it will be big this year. “We will have sumo wrestlers, a soprano, a story teller with puppets, bonsai workshops and kimono, and we will be updating a social media pages with photos of the cherry blossoms as they start blooming,” she said.

Ms Davidson also thanked Mr Budge, who she said had already started organising Sakura Matsuri, as well as being great in handing over his position to her.

• Topics:
• Gardening
• Arts and Media
• Tourism
• People