September 27th, 2024Creswick prepares for big community garage sale
Creswick residents have already started delving into the depths of their garages and assembling all manner of goodies and curios ahead of the town’s popular community garage sales set for next month.
The much-anticipated event happens Saturday October 19 and raises funds for the town’s neighbourhood centre and also for ongoing efforts to establish an indoor aquatic centre for the town.
Local households with goods to sell and garages to cleanse are invited to register for the all-of-town event and can then host a garage sale at their own address on the day.
Alternatively, they can get in contact with the neighbouhood centre and for $20 they can book to instead use one of a limited number of tables to sell their goods at the town’s regular monthly market happening on the same day as the big community garage sale.
“We’d love people to have a spring clean for a worthy cause and help both the neighbourhood centre and also the aquatic centre project,” says Creswick’s Hether Ingram, a staff member at CNC and coordinator of this year’s big community garage sale event.
“The old saying is that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure and it may be a bit cliched but it’s also true.”
Secretary of Creswick and District Aquatic Centre Inc, Julie Moran says efforts to establish an indoor aquatic centre for the town are gaining momentum with the tabling of a feasibility and business case study for the long-mooted project at this month’s council meeting.
Julie says the goal of getting an indoor aquatic center, complete with hydrotherapy facilities, for the community has been a long-held vision with the committee driving it formed back in 2012.
She says that the popular annual community garage sale is a great fund-raiser toward helping to realise the project and has proven particularly popular in previous years.
“Last year we had 55 registrations for the garage sale and we’re hoping to get just as many again this year,” CNC manager Crissy Austin says.
“Registrations have opened and registration forms are available at the Post Office and the Information Centre and also here at the neighbourhood centre, although we will be closed over the school term holidays.”
“We recommend that when people register to participate that they list the top seven items that they will have for sale, rather than just say ‘bric-a-brac’ for example,” Crissy says.
Julie says the list of goods for sale is pretty much endless: “clothing and children’s toys, workshop tools and camping gear, plants, seedlings, pots and garden tools, sewing machines, fabric, mirrors, tiles and renovation materials, fishing rods…”
“Creswick Community Garage Sales have been an annual fundraising event for the Creswick Aquatic Centre Campaign since 2014,” she says.
“The need for year-round access to aquatics provision was identified as part of the Hepburn Shire Council’s Aquatics Strategy.
“Creswick is a growth area with young families and healthy retirees choosing a regional lifestyle where they have access to all the city facilities. But Creswick has no swimming pool.
“A feasibility and business case study has now been presented to the council but due to council now being in caretaker mode any decision or discussion regarding the report has been held over until early next year.”
On the day of the big garage sales event maps with addresses and directions to all participating garage sales will be available from 8am at the Creswick Bandstand and the Creswick Market, and from 10 am at the Creswick Information Centre.
Maps will cost $5 and proceeds will be shared between the CNC programs and the ongoing campaign to get indoor heated pool for the town.
Words and Image: Eve Lamb
