If you’re a Ballarat local, you may have heard of your friendly neighbourhood barbers at Musket and Bayonet and its founder Jimmy Morrison.
Born and raised in Ballarat, Morrison hiked out to Prahran where he mastered his craft for five years until he returned home to start up Musket and Bayonet back in early 2017. Since then, Morrison and his legendary team have been actively supporting their local community getting involved with charities such as Headspace – a youth mental health foundation – and Strands for Trans – an awareness and support program for the LGBTQ+ community.
‘Aussie legends!’ you may proclaim, ‘but what’s this got to do with Spilt Milk?’
Well, always on the lookout for new ways to contribute, Jimmy reached out to Spilt Milk co-ordinators hoping to partner up with the heavyweight music festival to promote a couple of local charity programs.
“So I’ve got a few friends in the music industry and I saw Spilt Milk coming to Ballarat and I thought It’d be a really good opportunity to take as it’s such a big sold-out festival, one of the biggest to come to our town, and I thought how can I do something to help the community and be a part of it? So I got in contact with a few people and they were really keen on the idea.”
On the big day, punters will find a neato little Musket & Bayonet marquee within the festival grounds where the team will be offering beard trims, short haircuts and braids on a ‘pay as you wish’ basis. All donations collected will then be given to the punter’s choice of two Ballarat charities: Lachie’s Legacy and the OnTrack Foundation’s Soup Bus.
Apart from being a pair of awesome grass-roots charities doing some amazing work in general, Morrison also has some close ties to both organisations.
“So with Lachie’s Legacy, he was a guy I kinda knew growing up. His friends come into the shop and I know his mum really well so I try to do as much as possible and it’s a really positive charity for the community. With the soup bus, we work with them every Christmas Eve as well. For the last couple of years since I opened the shop every Christmas eve they do a dinner where they feed the homeless and so every Christmas we go out too and cut hair.”
In choosing charities to support at Spilt Milk the choice for Morrison was easy, “I just found these two really good charities in Ballarat that I clicked with and just wanted to do as much as possible to help them out and get everyone talking about them. They’re really really great people that run them and I just want to get the word out.”
So to all you Ballarat babies, whether you’re pressed for time to do your hair, after a fresh look or just wanna give back to the community, be sure to hit up the Musket & Bayonet crew on the day while you’re out and about enjoying the festivities.
Ballarat’s Spilt Milk festival will take place on Saturday, November 30, at Victoria Park. Suss the Musket & Bayonet crew here.
Written by Jess Sercombe