Benalla Business Network
Category: Community Group

Goorambat & District Community Group

 
  • c/- Post Office, 27 Halls Road,,
    Goorambat, VIC 3725
  • Tel: 04171963... show phone number
  • Telephone: 041719636
Goorambat & District Community Group

About Goorambat & District Community Group


Goorambat & District Community Group was formed three years in 2016 as a not-for-profit community group to provide assistance, communication and entertainment to the 350 (mostly older) residents of the township, and has since become the ‘umbrella group’ for various local clubs and organisations.

In 2018 the Group brought together the whole community to fund-raise painting of the grain silos as part of the Wall-to-Wall event in nearby Benalla. This included members providing accommodation for the artist’s family, plus his lunch daily during the two weeks it took to paint the silos, then holding an arts and crafts event and Devonshire Teas in the Goorambat Mechanics Institute Hall during the Wall to Wall weekend, and inviting the artist back later in the year for the official opening of the painted silos and permanent notice boards – again, made by community members.

In April 2019 this event was then repeated using another silo on the same property, owned by local farmer Kelvin Greaves and his family. This time the silo painting was of a team of 3 Clydesdale Horses in harness, bred in Goorambat by Graeme Trewin and his son Matt. A month later, the Group held a ‘Silo Opening’ attended by hundreds of people and incorporating a parade of farm equipment from the early days of Clydesdale horses right up to the present large farm machinery, and was entitled “Then and Now”.

Members of the Group have also built fencing around the two visitor viewing areas at their own expense, installed a Visitors Book at each viewing area which is put out every morning by a local lady, and even put up a Christmas tree! The three silo paintings have greatly enhanced the tourism attraction of Goorambat, complementing the previous year’s painting of ‘Sophia’ inside the nearby Uniting Church, and have ensured the town lives up to its new description of “Small Town, Big Art”.

The Community Group recently purchased an old tractor which had originally been built at Cooper Brothers of Goorambat, restored it, and put on display as another attraction to the township, and have since added permanent notice boards containing details of the history of the tractor and the original factory, as part of their ongoing history research project.

As part of the 2018 Benalla Festival, the Group ran a ‘Look What’s in Our Backyard’ party, which was a big hit as the opening event of the Festival and enjoyed by people from near and far. Members of the Group arranged a variety of food and drink options, live music, many family activities, and drove a bus service the 17km from Benalla. This was run in a similar format to the town’s Rock’n’Roll Fundraising night earlier in the year, which was to support the painting of the first silos. Many members of the Goorambat community attended one or both of these events, both of which received excellent feedback.

In between these events, the Group are regularly approached to provide catering for events at the Goorambat Hall, including weddings, funerals, parties and even several recent solar farm presentations. Members of the Community Group provide all the catering and service as required, with the local CFA cooking the BBQ and the Goorambat Football-Netball club running a community bar when required, with profits split between these and other local committees. Members of the township are kept up to date with all forthcoming events thanks to the kindness of the little Post Office.

The Group work closely with the Post Office owners, as well as the silo owners and the only other business in town – the Railway Hotel pub, who have donated so much in the way of time and money since the new owners reopened the empty pub two years ago.

There are a number of exciting plans going forward, including a Scarecrow Making competition with a High Tea as part of the 2019 Benalla Festival; a Men’s Shed; a museum of Farming Equipment; an Historic Walking Tour of the town (including a marker on the spot where Queen Elizabeth II spent the night during her Commonwealth Tour in 1954); a children’s playground; reopening the old ‘talkies’ cinema in the Mechanics Institute Hall…but most importantly working with Council towards provision of much-needed toilet facilities in the town. The town may only have 350 residents, but in the past two years there have been 60,000 tourists through looking at the silo art and so a public toilet is now a priority!

For Goorambat & District Community Group, the only thing holding them back now is time.