Harcourt pool and Harcourt's future

New eNews Published
http://eepurl.com/l_Mf

Garry

- Posted while out & about

Micheal Lane's Swimming Pool Submission

Michael Lane has put in his submission to Council and has gratefully allowed me to post it on the blog
Garry

19 March 2010

Michael Lane

Dear Councillors

I am writing to ask you to seriously consider NOT closing the Swimming pool at Harcourt, and my reasons are :

Children need very regular swimming sessions to gain real and solid security in the water, which will quite likely save their life some day in the future. They will not be able to get the necessary hours and even days in the water if they have to go all the way to Castlemaine, especially with the expense of both the travel and the Entry fee. The waiting time and Driving time that the parents would have to cope with is another major reason that the children of Harcourt would miss out on the essential long hours of practice in the water. I fear that drownings will increase among the children of Harcourt because of closing the Pool.

We are trying to build a community, and we need important amenities to do it Harcourt is a growing village which adds a lot of character to the district.

The pool as it exists is a very pleasant meeting place and promotes social cohesion between families.

Outlying communities like ours need support, and definitely do not need important amenities like the Pool stolen away from them. This would be damaging to the community. I would assert that what we need is less centralization, not more centralization.

So will the Harcourt Pool close?

Tonight a group of about 60 people attended the council's information session at the Harcourt Leisure Centre on the proposal to develop a Mount Alexander Shire Aquatic Centre and site it at the Western Reserve in Castlemaine.

Mayor Philip Schier addressed the audience and gave an overview of the proposal and invited questions from the audience.

Amongst the concerns and views raised by members of the audience were the following:

• Council seems to be favouring the closure of the Harcourt Pool which is in opposition to Council's efforts to help redevelop the centre of Harcourt to allow economic growth post the bypass by the Calder Freeway.
• The feasibility study and comments by Mayor Philip Schier do not indicate the impact that the closure of the Harcourt pool will have on the return on investment. Instead, the Harcourt pool is lumped in with other pools, including Castlemaine pool, to try to justify the numbers in the proposal.
• Removal of the pool will endanger local children by encouraging them to swim in dams and irrigation channels.
• The cost of entry to a Castlemaine based Aquatic Centre is 2.5 times the current cost of entry to the Harcourt Pool. Combined with transport costs, this will reduce the number of opportunities that Harcourt children can afford to swim.
• If transport was available, and that is a big IF, Harcourt parents have concerns about sending children on public transport after school hours. This concern does not exist when they can walk to, or ride a pushbike to, the Harcourt pool and be in amongst their local community.
• Though the travel time from Harcourt to Castlemaine seems deemed to be inconsequential for Harcourt residents and residents of surrounding areas such as Ravenswood, Faraday and Sutton Grange, and not a detriment to using an Aquatic Centre at the Western Reserve, Harcourt was not considered as a possible location even though a site at Campbell's Creek was considered.
• The feedback form provided by the council is biased toward the closure of the Harcourt pool as it's two main propositions are YES (do you support the proposal?) or NO. The feedback form does not ask, Do you support the closure of the Harcourt pool?

Fellow Harcourt residents that I spoke to after the meeting were left with the feeling that the decision to close Harcourt pool has already been made.

I sure that others will add to this blog and add the points that I have missed. If others are not forthcoming with their support and if we cannot change the current proposal to one that will allow the Harcourt Pool to stay open, then we are missing a huge opportunity for the future of Harcourt. A future that should be able to be built upon the efforts that the community has already laboured for many years to establish.

If you are not on the mailing list for the Harcourt Pool please send an email to garryholmes@harcourt.vic.au

Harcourt Applefest Finished for another year

The Harcourt Applefest is completed for another year, despite rain that came thundering down before and after, the events on Saturday and Sunday went off without too much interference from the rain.
Crowds seemed to be up on last year, and the parade made a historic path along Main Street, down Market street and and along the inside lane of the old Calder Highway. 

Sales from the Art Show were up on previous years as was the quality of the Art Work on show, the Art Show was judged by Paul Northam, and he took the Art show opening guest on a journey into the commended and the prize winners of the evening.

Although it was relocated to the Harcourt Leisure Centre the Opera in the Park with Quarrto Voci was amazing and the crowd were enthralled and engaged by the performance.

The Fun run was well attended with the 4 & 7 km attracting 70 runners with the 7 km run being won by Daryn James who was up from Melbourne visiting family who live locally.

The pet parade and the ferret race were well attended and the High ANA hall, the apple growers tent and the Harcourt Valley Primary School Stall were well atteended on the Sunday as they had been for the whole weekend.  Unfortunately due to inclement weather, the Community picnic was cancelled on the Monday.

For Photos of the Applefest Click Here

Harcourt wants to keep it's pool

Harcourt shows up to show it's opposition to the potential closing of the Harcourt Swimming pool, last week on the basis of a few emails being sent out, and forwarded by members of the Harcourt Community to others, there was great turn out to show opposition to the Councils current Aquatic Strategy that was released for an information session, among other recommendations, it is recomended that the Harcourt Outdoor Swimming Pool close to fund the operational shortfall of the proposed Castlemaine Indoor Swimming pool to be located at the Western Reserve

Heat 6 of the Apple Pie Eating held at the Harcourt Tavern last Friday night

Heat 6 of the Apple Pie Eating competition was held at the Harcourt Tavern at 7:30 last Friday night. The winner was Wayne Rice of Harcourt. Wayne took on 11 competitors, including Jonathan Ridnell and Corey Hague of ABC Central Victoria, and left them standing at the bar. Wayne has now earned the right to contest the championship in the final at 4pm on Saturday 6th March at the main stage of the Harcourt Applefest.

Make sure you get there to cheer them on.

If you did not win your heat, or just want to see if you have the guts to compete, try your luck in the heats on the day at 2pm and 3pm.