2020: Community Centre

Celebrates 30 years

“A Place of the Heart” AV documentary and Life Memberships

In 2020, the Margaret River Community Centre celebrated thirty years of providing services and support to local people from its base, the old hospital in Tunbridge Street.

Initially when the new hospital opened in late 1989, it looked as if the old site would be sold and the historic buildings demolished. But many local people didn’t think a private organisation should take over what was a community site.

In the bespoke audio-visual documentary, “A Place of the Heart”,  former ABC radio producer Bill Bunbury and long-term Community Centre supporter Ros Blakeney showcase the story, in interviews and photographs, of how the old hospital was saved for the Margaret River community. The interviews also describe how this group of wooden buildings has been turned into a vibrant centre which houses social support services, including a soup kitchen and a child care centre together with space for the many community organisations which hold meetings and events there.

In the words of long-term administration officer, Lyn Moorfoot the Margaret River Community Centre has been “a wonderful place to work. It’s been a real privilege for me. It’s a heart. A place of the heart”.

The documentary premiered on Saturday 5 December 2020, in the Church Gallery at the combined Margaret River Community Centre – Radio MR Open Day.

Margaret River Community Centre Inc’s Chair, Sally Hays, presented three life membership awards to honour the long-term service of committee members, Rosamond Blakeney and Anne Shepherdson and administration officer, Lyn Moorfoot. An Illawarra Flametree was planted in northern end of the courtyard to commemorate the day.

2020 was also the year to celebrate the Soupie’s 25th anniversary. However, due to Covid-19 restrictions limiting Soupie to a takeaway service, cake celebrations were postponed until dining resumes.