July 18, 2017
It may have taken a bit less than four years and slightly more than 254 sausages, but Murgon’s former Skate Park was officially renamed the Murgon Rotary And Youth Park on Tuesday.
The first stage of the park was opened by actress Leah Purcell in August 2013 in front of an audience of 600 school children and officials from the South Burnett and Cherbourg councils.
At that time, it featured a sheltered skate park and a climbing wall.
But over the past four years the complex has been steadily expanded thanks to the Murgon Rotary Club, who donated children’s play equipment and shade sails they had originally installed in Krebbs Street.
The South Burnett Regional Council added to Rotary’s donation by installing bollard fencing and car parking areas along the park’s Gore Street frontage.
The Council also installed spectator seating next to the skate bowl; a covered picnic table and gas barbecue for weekend family picnics; and planted rows of trees that will provide welcome summer shade with a few more years’ growth.
On Tuesday, Murgon Rotary Club members invited students from nearby St Joseph’s Catholic School and Murgon State School to come to the park at 12:30pm for a sausage sizzle and the official opening of the facility’s latest stage.
254 students dutifully walked down Gore Street with their teachers around lunch time, and were each given a sausage sizzle sandwich before the official part of the day got underway.
Deputy Mayor Kathy Duff got things moving soon after the last sausage disappeared by thanking the students for coming along and being so well behaved.
She said the students owed a lot to Murgon Rotary, who had not only donated existing play equipment but had also chipped some extra funds to buy some of the more modern play equipment they could now see installed.
Cr Duff then invited Murgon Rotary to say a few words, and Rex Shelton obliged by saying that there was nothing he liked better than giving a public talk with no more than a few minutes’ notice.
But he went on to say that Rotary had always had a youth focus, and the club was proud to help bring the expanded facility to Murgon and Cherbourg’s youngsters.
Cr Duff then asked Council’s Natural Resources and Parks Manager Greg Griffiths to tell the students about some of the things that would be added to the Youth Park in the future.
Mr Griffiths told the students that in the next few years, the Council intended to install footpaths in the Youth Park along with more shade shelters.
In about five years, the Council also hoped to install a bike training track so students could safely practice their bicycle riding skills in the park, rather than have to learn on the streets.
He said his office in the former Murgon Shire Council Chambers gave him a good view of the park, and it was a great pleasure for him to see students using it in the mornings before classes started, and later in the afternoon when the school day was over.
He thanked them for respecting the park and urged them to ensure other children did, too.
Cr Duff had put up one of her traditional pink ribbons for the opening, but she invited students from both schools to cut it.
Murgon State School captains Sienna Cluff and Zachary Smith and St Joseph’s Year 6 leaders Marion Riley and Riley Robinson did the honours.
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