A striking plan

By Kath Gannaway
THE Narbethong Public Hall Committee is making no apologies about spending $1.6million dollars on a new hall.
“It’s a simple building, but it will also be an iconic building for Narbethong,” said NPHC treasurer Jennifer Wood of the architect designed ultra-modern replacement.
In a three-way funding arrangement $500,000 will come from a private donor, $600,000 from the Bushfire Relief Fund and the remainder, about $500,000, from insurance.
Ms Wood said in the weeks and months after the local hall was destroyed on Black Saturday, the committee tried all the government agencies to see how they could rebuild.
When they weren’t getting any answers, they turned to the corporate sector for help.
Through Emergency Architects Australia they had pro-bono offers of help from an architect, surveyors and a planner as well as the funding from a generous donor.
Ms Wood said the new bushfire standards, including double glazed windows and fire shutters, had increased the cost dramatically.
She said the design aimed to reflect the timber heritage of the town as well as meeting the aesthetic needs of the community.
“This is a compromise that achieves those aims in quite a dramatic way,” she said.
She said there had been a lot of goodwill from the corporate and broader community.
“In some ways it has overwhelmed us that big corporates appreciate that we need as a community to have an attractive building.”
In response to views that the money could be better spent, Ms Wood said the rebuilding of community halls was identified in the top 10 priorities for community recovery.
“We all appreciate every individual’s struggle; each person who has been affected has an individual recovery focus, but there are also broader recovery issues and the (bushfire) fund has determined the allocation of some funds specifically for community projects which cannot be directed to individual people,” she said.
The hall project has the support of Tony Thompson, chair of the Marysville/Triangle Community Recovery Committee who said comments at the May expo where the project went on display had been very positive.
He said the hall committee deserved credit for their pro-active role.
“They haven’t just sat there with their hands out,” he said. “They have gone out and chased sponsorship and good luck to them.”
Ms Wood said the hall committee hoped the project would go to tender by the end of June and had allowed about six months for construction.