Letter to the Editor: keeping Boambee Creek Reserve ‘on track’

DEAR News Of The Area

I was the treasurer of the voluntary trust that used to manage the Boambee Creek Reserve for the last 15 years of its existence.

We dissolved the trust because of the need for us to find suitable insurances to protect the trust in these litigious times. (The need to sue someone if you can’t take responsibility for your own actions.)

The last trustees were Harry Weller, Neal Welling, Steve Bolin, Geoff Drewe, Col Cronin, Tony Youngman and Ken Callinan.

The park was self-funded from the sale of annual keys and the gatetakings.

I think at the time it was $3 per car through the gate or $50 for an annual key, giving access all year.

This money was shared 50/50 with the licensees of the kiosk.

Their tasks were rubbish removal, grass cutting and cleaning of the toilets and shelters on a daily basis – and security at night as they lived on site.

We used our bit for bills like electricity, fuel, rubbish removal, cleaning supplies and extending the concrete roadway. Each year we had the arborist in to trim dead branches off the trees that the trustees decided were too hard for us to

deal with.

We had working bees regularly and all tables were painted yearly.

Planks were replaced when required and legs repaired on the metal framed tables that were all around the park.

We were able to arrange bulldozers from the Department of soil conservation to push sand up from the channel to keep our beach maintained and beautiful and, in later years, we purchased our own tractor to help.

We also repaired the gate when it failed, usually on busy Sundays, collecting cash from customers and trying to figure out the problem with continual traffic.

We could not afford to lose revenue.

I thought it would be good for the park to be administered by the Department of Lands as they would have big buckets of money to do the things we had done.

It seemed right at the start, with renovations to outdoor areas near the kiosk, upgrading the electronics of the gate etc.

But with the passing of Harry Weller, I would say the wheels fell off because no one was there to make sure it stayed on track.

Left alone, the creek will reclaim the sand that Harry, John Smith and the other original trustees dredged up to fill the area that now has the kiosk – the John Henry and Vic Lindsay shelters.

Mangroves will grow again and Boambee Creek Park Reserve will be a distant memory.

Ken Callinan

Former treasurer, Boambee Creek Reserve Trust, Coffs Harbour.