THE Southern Grampians Shire Council (SGSC) has awarded a long list of community organisations and projects between $1200 and $15,000 of funding from its current round of Community Partnership Grants.

At Wednesday evening’s council meeting, SGSC chief executive, Tony Doyle, presented the recommendation and spoke about the merit of the various projects and initiatives.

“As councillors know, this program enables community organisations and individuals to apply for grants in the following categories - tourism and events, sustainability, community strengthening, community infrastructure, arts and culture, and heritage as well,” he said.

“These grants are about helping our community organisations fulfil their aspirations and goals for our broader community.

“Over the last five years, councillors allocated $900,000 in funding through this program to community organisations and as the councillors know, it’s about a lot more than just the funding we contribute, as a lot of these grants attract matching funding from the community organisations and the impact of them is augmented by the volunteer armies that support these groups who are the recipients of these grants.”

Among the major funding recipients this round were the Peaks and Trails event, The Hamilton Basketball Association Junior Tournament, Serra Terror and the Dunkeld Writers Festival.

Mr Doyle said he was gratified to see the range of “diverse” ideas that were being proposed “that really show the importance of these programs”.

“(It) includes improvements to facilities such as air conditioning, supporting important events for our community, enhancing occupational health and safety within community organisations, supporting mental health, providing equipment such as digital screens, and refrigerators, and of course mowers, which is a frequent flyer within this program.”

In response, Cr Bruach Colliton quipped that “the CEO stole my thunder, I was going to ask if we know how many mowers we purchased through the Community Grants in the last two years”.

Mr Doyle countered and said, “I could safely say that since I’ve been in this council, I haven’t seen a round of these programs without at least one mower”.

Cr Greg McAdam said he was “a little disappointed in no-one from Cavendish or Balmoral having applied for anything” but still praised the program’s more recent popularity.

“This is without doubt one of the better programs to me that this council has produced since I’ve been here,” he said.

“I really do recommend that the community get behind it, which they have shown just in the last one year at least. Prior to that I think we were under-subscribed (but) the last couple of times well and truly subscribed, which to me means that it’s a success.”

One community applicant was Coleraine Old Blacksmith Shop co-owner, John Kane, who with the $2500 they won said he was thrilled with the work that can now be done on various aspects of the building, including the two forges – all to bring the site to looking and working like it originally did more than 50 years ago.

“All the tools were all made here,” he said, pointing at the wide array of metal implements still there.

“That’s what blacksmiths did - when we get all this cleaned up we’ll probably put the tools on the wall there and take rust off some of them.”

Mr Kane said he expected the money to also go to fixing guttering and restumping, adding he “really appreciated the support of the council”.

The goal of the project was to preserve the skills of blacksmiths and add to the tourism potential of Coleraine.

Another recipient was Lynn Brown who has been overseeing restoration work to the Reg Ansett family home in Learmonth Street, Hamilton, and was “very excited” with the announcement of $15,000 to preserve an important part of the town’s history.

After buying the house “at the end of 2020”, she and her husband, Warwick, have already done some preliminary work with restumping, but that has meant other parts of the house have needed fixing too.

“The columns at the front of the house there now do not connect with the roof of the house,” she said.

“On the left-hand side, there’s a window that is horizontal rather than vertical that was added. It’s not an original window and it looks completely out of place. So it’s to remove that window.”

Ms Brown said there was other work such as flooring to do and she was consulting with a local heritage expert to get it looking like it was; she hoped they could get work started “within the next two months … before it gets too wet”.

The Community Partnership Grants Program is an annual program run by the Southern Grampians Shire Council, aimed at supporting local community groups and their initiatives.

The grants are funded through the council’s budget and are allocated through a competitive application process, with the next round of grants to open in early July.

For more information, please visit sthgrampians.vic.gov.au