The Wonthaggi Citizens Band By Colin Billington
BACKERS of Wonthaggi’s Rescue Station arts centre are showing the same staunchness as the town’s miner forebears.
At the recent AGM of the State Coal Mine-Rescue Station committee of management, members determined to continue to work towards a home for local arts and culture groups despite recent setbacks, including flooding and bureaucratic intransigence.
BACKERS of Wonthaggi’s Rescue Station arts centre are showing the same staunchness as the town’s miner forebears.
At the recent AGM of the State Coal Mine-Rescue Station committee of management, members determined to continue to work towards a home for local arts and culture groups despite recent setbacks, including flooding and bureaucratic intransigence.
| Thank goodness for the original Wonthaggi orange bricks of which the building is built because it gives the committee members something solid to bang their heads against after meetings with the various local bureaucrats. It’s been suggested that the committee simply pack up and leave so the gates can be locked and another Wonthaggi icon can be left to crumble away like the nearby Brace 5 building. The committee, which is nearing its first 10 years, achieved early success with markets, festivals, workshops, children’s theatre and exhibitions. All that came to a halt in 2012 when the Wonthaggi town drain, which passes by the Rescue Station, experienced three “once in a hundred years” floods over a short period. In response, the landlord of the building and surrounds, Parks Victoria, demanded that a series of changes and modifications would be required before the building could be used again as an all purpose arts complex as it had been used in the past. The modifications proposed by Parks Victoria will cost several hundred thousand dollars, which has to be raised by the committee. Since then it’s been a largely thankless task. At the recent AGM, president Wendy Crellin outlined the efforts being made by the committee to revive the wide range of art and craft functions that it had been presenting for seven years. In her annual report, Ms Crellin commented that the committee’s dealings with local bureaucrats could very easily be from an episode of Yes Minister or Utopia. Despite the frustrations, the committee plans to continue their fund raising activities and hope to see the SCM-Rescue Station back in an operational mode in the not-too-distant future. |  The rescue station proved an ideal venue for theatre.  The Bass Coast Chorale Rescue station - the next chapter In November 2006, local citizens formed a committee to redevelop Wonthaggi’s historic rescue station building as an arts exhibition and function centre. Since then, the committee has staged markets, festivals and exhibitions attracting many thousands of visitors. It was the home of the original Make, Bake and Create quarterly markets, which have now moved to the town centre and become monthly. Walks and talks have increased the awareness of visitors and locals of the importance that the whole area played in the emergence of the township of Wonthaggi. The vision today is that the rescue station will act as a home to many local arts and culture groups, and as a venue for the development and exhibition of alternative art forms. |
Colin Billington is a member of the Rescue Station committee of management.