Locals ready to celebrate Barunah Park’s past and present

BARUNAH Park Public Hall will be the focus of a celebration when a new community plan for the area is launched there next Friday 20 March.

Developed by a team of five community coordinators using local input and feedback, the plan will be presented to residents of the

district at the post-harvest event starting at 7pm.

The get-together, one of several held at the hall and recreation reserve each year, is open to anyone living in the Barunah Park, Barunah Plains and Wingeel district but residents from nearby areas are also very welcome to attend.

Food will be provided but the event will be BYO drinks, with a raffle planned as part of the activities.

The coordinators – Helen Banks, Joy Coad, Russell Coad, Kath Woods and Margaret Bufton – gathered at the hall on Tuesday evening to put the final touches to their plans for the gathering.

Mr Coad said the park precinct was unique because the land and hall were owned and managed by the community itself.

“It started in the mid-1950s when … families came to the area,” he explained.

 

“A parcel of land – 10 acres – was donated by the Russell family; the community grew, they had a hall; this is the second hall; they had tennis courts and a tennis club.

“It was quite a large community. Part of the reason they developed this little precinct was they were too far from Shelford, too far from Cressy and too far from Inverleigh so it sort of developed in that little pocket in between.”

Mr Coad estimated the population of Barunah Park is now between 35 and 40 people, but was once significantly larger when it was a soldier settlement area.

The precinct comprises the hall, disused tennis courts and about 3.5 hectares or eight acres of open space.

Mr Coad said a recent addition was a memorial marker in a front corner commemorating the 1958 soldier settlement of the Barunah Plains Estate.

An interesting link is that Ms Woods’s father, John Wentworth, is featured on the memorial.

The community plan, meanwhile, focuses primarily on beautifying and maintaining the hall and its surrounds.

“We want to try to reinstate the entrance as well, which is a bit tatty,” Mr Coad said.

 

“And to preserve our history; talk about our history – who we are, why we’re here and where we’ve come from.”

Mr Coad said many people drove through the area and had no idea about its history or the people who had lived there – and those that still do.

The plan is part of the Golden Plains Shire’s Community Planning Program, which helps communities develop and implement four-year plans.

The program has been running since 2000 and more than 130 volunteer community coordinators throughout the municipality have worked with residents to put plans together.

It aims to build a community’s capacity to identify, design and implement local projects, and provides some funding for that purpose.

Mr Coad said the hall and reserve were very important for locals because they were a place of common interest and a meeting point for them.

“It’s important that we maintain the asset, so we need to have some form of plan to look after and maintain our asset as well,” he said.