By Callum Ludwig
The building blocks of a township group for Yarra Junction are continuing, with another meeting of residents taking place last week.
15 residents and workers from the township attended a meeting on Thursday 25 July with the aim of discussing a name and purpose for the group.
While they haven’t quite settled on the name and purpose yet, matters discussed included the history of the town, it’s central position within Upper Yarra, services and events provided and the need for public awareness of these, individual visions for the town and the current lack of a united ‘voice’ for Yarra Junction.
Long-time Yarra Junction resident Frank Colverson was one attendee and said it took a little bit longer than they thought it would, but they are about 15 minutes away from deciding on the purpose and name
“Most of the group are relatively new to the town, moving here over the last several years so they weren’t aware of some of the stuff like in the 90’s, there was plans to turn the former shire office into a pokies venue but a group got together to stop that in the town,” he said.
“There have been development committees and so forth over the years but we haven’t had one for quite a while so know there were people who were interested to hear what can be achieved with community input,”
“There’s an interest from the new people in the history of the place and I think for people like me that have been here for a while, it’s great to see that there’s another diverse group of people that want to come in and progress the place more.”
There’s a total of 17 township groups in the Yarra Ranges, including the Millgrove Resident’s Action Group (MRAg), Warburton Advancement League, WHYLD Community Group, the Reefton McMahon’s Action Group and the Little Yarra Valley Community all in the Upper Yarra.
Mr Colverson said Yarra Junction has been a central spot to muster resources and provide help in the Upper Yarra over the last 80 to 100 years.
“There’s been a history of offering support in natural disasters, particularly bushfires, as a cenral spot for those out on the Little Yarra river such as Gladysdale, Powelltown and those sorts of places as well as Don Valley,” he said.
“There’s a role for a township group in advocating assets should be able to form a group who will be respected for their opinion on what’s needed in the town over the coming years.”
Yarra Junction community members have also previously met representatives of Monbulk And District Community Opportunities Working Group (MADCOW) who shared some of what they have been able to achieve.
Mr Colverson said will bring all the different people in the town who are operating individually now and bring them together.
“If we can put together basically a list of all those organisations in the town and what they do, and we can help with distributing information communications, there’s a central hub then for them to operate around,” he said.
“We will be holding another meeting in the coming weeks.”
