Sophie Conlon
Glenburnie Memorial Hall is getting a face lift and becoming a place where veterans, ex-emergency servicemen, and their families can come together for a bit of fun with people who have shared experience.
The committee has stepped up since November 2022 and started the process of bringing life back into the hall.
It was remembered by residents Peter and Cheryle Hellyer as a bustling hive of activity in its heyday, but it has not been used often in recent years.
“It’s just bringing back the old sense of community, which we seem to have lost,” Mrs Hellyer said.
Assistant secretary Laurie Mann said the hall revival came about when the committee discovered a need for a supportive place for local veterans to relax.
“You talk, and you meet people and they’ve all said the same story, there’s nowhere in town where you can come to a neutral environment that’s alcohol free, pokies free, where mates can just talk and get a sense of belonging,” he said.
He imagined it as a place where ex-servicemen could come together and talk about their shared experiences in a safe and alcohol free environment.
“Some of them have got PTSD, anxiety, and you go into a place and it [can be] like a pub or a club, you got all the noise, the machines, and people you don’t know, so how are you going to walk through that front door,” he said.
“When we come here and we get it going, yeah there’s going to be a bit of segregation but in the end I think it will be a case of acceptance, and we’ll build up a bit of rapport with people.”
As a committee member and veteran, Mr Hellyer said the space was one he was looking forward to using.
“I’m not a crowd person, I don’t go to places where there are lots of people,” he said.
While there is no end date for the hall renovation, Mr Mann said they were still building a safe community while the revitalisation was underway.
“I was amazed, we had our first AGM and Jeff [committee president] said to me there will be about three or four people… and we had nearly 20 people there,” he said.
During working bees, the committee have found parts of the hall’s history and Mr Mann said they were keen to discover more.
He explained they were hoping people who knew the history would come forward and share their knowledge and artifacts.
“We got to reach out to the public to try find more of the history of it, what it was used for, who used to be here, who’s got pictures and that stuff,” he said.
Mr Mann was also keen to get students from Glenburnie Primary School involved with the hall’s past and into the future.
“We’re working with the primary school as well, they’re going to do a bit of a history study on the place, and we’re going to try and use this place to teach them ballroom dancing,” he said.
Mr Mann said he was looking forward to the hall being usable so they could host concerts, support groups, ladies days, baking competitions and more.
