February 10th, 2020Citizen of the Year
WHEN David Hall accepted his Australia Day Award for Citizen of the Year for Hepburn Shire at Daylesford Town Hall, there was a huge group of invisible helpers standing on the stage behind him.
It’s traditional for the award to be given to one person, one citizen, and David is certainly well deserving of the nod, but he acknowledges he does not work alone.
Since retiring 20 years ago, David began a new career of achievements, contributions, involvements, committees and advocacies that is as astounding to most as it is just normal for David.
“Well, it has been 20 years…and I did manage to grow some vegetables as well,” he said.
In his acceptance speech, David noted all of his fellow community members and that only with their contributions would the achievements have been possible.
“Anything I did, I did with a strong team of people – there’s no false modesty there. There are a lot of wonderful people here doing great things together.”
And those things truly have been great.
Firstly, it was U3A Hepburn Shire.
“We got together and decided to form a U3A – and now we’ve got about 250 members, a very big range of activities and we’re always looking for more people to join if they wish.” In 2018, U3A successfully nominated David as a Victorian Senior Citizen of the Year.
As with each of David’s achievements, he insists on using the word “we” instead of “I”.
Next, it was time for David, and his late wife Lorelle, to found the Words in Winter festival.
“My wife and I had visited a literary festival in Queenscliff and, coming back in the car, we thought what a great idea it would be to have that here. So we recruited a team of really wonderful people, there were so many great people, and we put our heads together and decided how to go about it. We hadn’t run a festival before but we sort of learned on the job.
“We wanted to give creative people an opportunity to strut their stuff, and to give locals the opportunity to participate – and I think we succeeded. People from Hepburn Shire come and people from Melbourne come, it’s good for business too.”
David was the festival co-ordinator for its first seven years, when it spread to other shire towns.
Another community project that David was involved in was the ARC recreation centre at Daylesford Secondary College.
It started when he saw a sign inviting people to come along to a community meeting, and it continued when he walked out of that meeting as the committee chair. The group had been working for many years by then on the project.
“We found we had to raise several hundreds of thousands of dollars to get anywhere and we did that, thanks to this community. The Department of Education rounded off the funding and we now have two multi-purpose courts.”
Then David – and others – noticed that the Bendigo Bank was starting to form community banks and they wanted in on the action.
“We thought it would be good because these banks put an incredible amount of the profit back into the community, in various worthwhile activities.”
After many years on the steering committee, David has seen the Daylesford District Community Bank established and grow. So far, it had donated $330,000 back to the community.
Now, David has his sights set on creating more affordable housing in the shire.
“I chair a team working to expand the stock of affordable homes within the Hepburn Shire for those who are disadvantaged and the lowly paid.”
David jokes that the reasons behind his long history of helping the community are selfish. But they are not. They are what makes him a Citizen of the Year.
“The reward for me has been not only as a contributor, but also the friends I’ve made. I have a circle of really great friends.”
Words: Kate Taylor | Image: Kyle Barnes
