Anzac Day events finalised for RSL branches

RSL branches in the Moorabool area have finalised their plans for Anzac Day on Saturday 25 April, with a range of dawn services and other events locked in.

The Ballan RSL Sub-Branch will be the busiest, with dawn services in Ballan, Myrniong and Blackwood; its regular march in Inglis Street; an afternoon service at the cenotaph outside the post office; and a gunfire breakfast after the local dawn service.

Sub-branch president Pippa Morris said Anzac Day would fall on a weekend for the first time in many years, so she did not know what to expect in terms of attendance numbers.

“Our dawn service is very popular; we would get between 200 and 300 people normally,” she said.

“[At] Myrniong, perhaps a couple of hundred, and Blackwood we get probably 75 per cent of the town.

“The afternoon service, the cenotaph service, we would average around 400.

 

“This is the first time we’ve had one on a weekend for a long time so we’re not sure if that will make a difference.”

Morris said the 6am dawn service in Ballan – at McLeans Reserve – would be followed by a gunfire breakfast at the fire brigade, while the 6am service at Myrniong would also be followed by a gunfire breakfast at the local fire brigade.

The Blackwood dawn service will also start at 6am.

“Usually the people of Blackwood put on a bit of an impromptu breakfast in the street after that,” Morris said.

Back in Ballan, the march is scheduled to start at 1pm and will be led by the Ballan Light Horse Troop with help from the Daylesford Community Brass Band.

“Our colour party in the march is made up of the 1st Ballan Scouts, and then there’ll be other groups – normally all the local primary schools participate … and we have also invited guests [including] local politicians state and Commonwealth, Moorabool Shire representatives, and fire brigades,” she said.

The march will end at the cenotaph, where the day’s main service will take place at about 1.15pm.

An afternoon tea at the RSL after the service will be catered by the Ballan and District CWA.

 

Morris said the sub-branch was asking anyone planning on attending the services to wear their own medals or medals of family members.

She said anyone would be welcome to lay a wreath at the cenotaph service.

Meanwhile, the Bacchus Marsh sub-branch will host a dawn service at the Village Green in Main Street, beside the RSL headquarters, from 5.45am.

President Alf Hawken said the service would be followed by the march, starting at the Bacchus Marsh Hospital in Grant Street and finishing at the RSL in Main Street, from 10am.

Hawken said the sub-branch would not hold its usual service at Coimadai because of a death, but indoor services would be done for residents of Susan Barton House and Providence Aged Care as normal.

“That’s one that’s always high on the list for me; I enjoy it,” said Hawken, who will also lead the dawn service.

Hawken said the dawn service regularly attracted between 3,000 and 4,000 people.

 

“It’s a pretty big effort for us,” he said. “… [T]he Village Green … is well packed and it goes out onto the street.

“In round figures we have around 50 wreaths that will be laid.”

Hawken said he did not expect Anzac Day falling on a Saturday to make any difference to attendances.

A further dawn service will take place in Navigators, while general services are scheduled for Bungaree, Lal Lal and Yendon.

In Navigators, the dawn service will take place at the cenotaph at 5.45am, while the Bungaree service will be held at the recreation reserve memorial in Bungaree-Creswick Road from 8am and in Lal Lal at the Anzac Memorial Park in Clarendon-Lal Lal Road from 11am.

And in Yendon, the local service will begin at 5pm at the Yendon Avenue of Honour in Yendon No. 2 Road.