With cyclone Seroja repairs ongoing with the town and Covid still doing the rounds, this past year has been interesting for all.
The weekend of September 18th/19th was a weekend of celebrating the resilience of the Kalbarri Community and Kalbarri’s 70th birthday. There was a concert on Saturday night, music provided by the Navy Concert Band from Perth and the Sunday was a family picnic day on the foreshore. All in all, a good time was had by many. Thanks to the Dongara Lions and Dongara Charities for the donation which provided the funds for this weekend of fun. Keep it in free, fun for all. Thanks also to the KDA members and Meedac for assisting with the weekend and to the local businesses that contributed with accommodation and meals. The Navy band were very impressed and are willing to return at anytime.
The new playground at the Marina Park for which the Shire obtained grant funding, has been completed and was well used over the holiday periods. Shade to go over the equipment is still being investigated – the ongoing issue is to obtain something that we can leave in place all year around. This will continue to be investigated.
We received a grant of $20,000 to carry out the beginning of the Shopping Centre precinct revitalisation and to assist with this we were lucky to have Craig Poletti, architect from Geraldton who has been involved in other projects around town, to draw up a concept plan for us to present to the Shire. This has been done and currently we have ordered furniture for the area, are looking at solar recharge stations (not wi-fi) and trees are about to be ordered. We have applied for another grant from the RAC to continue with this project.
New toilet blocks have been installed by the Shire at Chinamans, Sally’s Tree and the marina and showers to be added are on order but like many things at present have been held up somewhere.
The foreshore project being managed by Nicole Nelson and Tourism WA is ongoing. Nicole has done a lot of work and is continuing to look for funding for this project. We are hoping that very soon the final plans will be available for all to see on the Shire website.
We have obtained a cash for containers account so that anyone that wishes can donate their containers to KDA for use in the projects we do. This past 12 months we have received $155.90 from containers. Don’t forget to pass the information on to others.
Last year we brought the Community Markets under the KDA umbrella, thanks to Bev & Bill for continuing to keep these running. They are adding to our funds and over the holidays they made enough to pay for the insurance we took out and have renewed.
This year we also brought the Kalbarri Town Talk under the KDA banner as KTT have been unable to fulfil a committee. Thanks must to Tracie and Neville for all their hard work in keeping the paper running and for the volunteers who are currently assisting with the printing which Tracie has been doing remotely.
Hamish has continued to work with assistance of the Mens Shed in converting used power poles into Osprey nesting poles. on. This project is not quite complete as the instillation of the poles is yet to happen. Thank you Hamish and all your helpers.
Thanks also to Loni for her continuation of Australia Day being an event that everyone can attend. This year we helped by obtaining a grant to go toward this event and thus reducing the need to rely on the community and businesses for funding.
We have been visited by members of Murchison Hydrogen Renewables project who continue with their plans for the hydrogen plant on Murchison House station and are regularly visiting town to keep the community updated.
We would also like to thank the Kalbarri Shire Crew for all their continuing work maintaining the playground, the gardens and parks around town.