Voluntary Committees of Management News

September 2023

Cover photo: Old time dancing at the Majorca Town Hall

Committee stories in this edition:

Bendoc Recreation Reserve
Kinglake West Mechanics Institute Hall and Recreation Reserve

Vol CoM News purpose

In addition to sharing committee stories, Vol CoM News is designed to provide key governance information for Crown land reserve committees of management.

Every committee/reserve is different with a unique history, including public halls, recreation reserves, rail trails, showgrounds and a variety of public parks/gardens and environmental reserves.

Our Department greatly values the time and expertise committee members volunteer to manage public land for the benefit of local and regional communities.

CoM Guidelines

The current version of the Committee of Management (CoM) Guidelines was published in December 2021. It can be downloaded from the committees of management section of the DEECA website:

https://www.deeca.vic.gov.au/boards-and-governance/committees-of-management

At 64 pages, the CoM Guidelines include a wide variety of information on topics such as committee responsibilities; standards of conduct and required policies; financial management; insurance.

Standards of conduct and required policies

Section 4 of the Committee of Management Guidelines provides information about recommended approaches to:

Gifts, benefits and hospitality
Conflict of interest
Meetings and decisions
Dispute resolution

To assist committees in developing and implementing policies on these topics, the committees of management section of the DEECA website has model policies. These model policies can be adopted in full or adapted to suit committee preferences.

2022-23 Annual Return

Big thanks to all the committees that have submitted the 2022-23 Annual Return ahead of the due date of 30 September. The Annual Return is an annual requirement for all committees. It provides valuable information for DEECA’s overview and support for committees.

For any committees yet to complete the Annual Return, the 2022-23 Annual Return Form can be downloaded from the committees of management section of the DEECA website.

If your committee has any issues or difficulties with the Annual Return, please contact us on voluntary.committees@delwp.vic.gov.au.

Bendoc Recreation Reserve

Bendoc is 110 km north-west of Orbost in East Gippsland on the edge of the Monaro tablelands close to the New South Wales border.

In addition to a picnic-BBQ area, Bendoc Recreation Reserve displays historic mining and timber milling equipment. A feature attraction for passing tourists is "the big log" with a girth of 2.51 metres. Originally cut in 1981, the log was on display at the Bendoc Mill before being transferred to the Bendoc Recreation Reserve in the early 2000's. When first cut and transported to the mill, the log was over 9 metres long (and estimated at 60 tonnes). The log now on display is about a third of this length.

Story and photo supplied by CoM Secretary Rita Barnes

Kinglake West Mechanics Institute Hall and Reserves Committee

Kinglake West is 45km northeast of the Melbourne CBD and located near the intersection of three local government areas, the City of Whittlesea and the Shires of Murrindindi and Nillumbik. The town was substantially damaged in the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, including 10 fatalities.

The committee manages two reserves, the Kinglake West Mechanics Institute Reserve (which houses the Kinglake West Hall) and the adjacent Kinglake Recreation Reserve which was formerly used for tennis but now has evolved into a "heritage precinct" run by the Kinglake Historical Society (KHS).

KHS's flourishing heritage precinct uses a building that was for a time set up as a tennis clubhouse. The building was originally the library at the Kinglake West School - built by parents at the school in the 1980's and moved by the Hall committee in 2008 to save it from demolition when the new school was to be built. After the 2009 fires, a new tennis complex was built at Kinglake Central and the building and courts on the Recreation Reserve at Kinglake West were no longer used.

The KHS were looking for more room and moved to the Recreation Reserve in 2017-18. The KHS subsequently obtained a grant through the Foundation for Regional and Rural Renewal (FRRR) to extend the building. They also use the old tennis courts to display historic equipment and the original Kinglake Post Office (1914) which has been moved to the Reserve (with assistance from the FRRR and the Lions Club).

Another major FRRR grant auspiced by the Hall Committee was for murals on the concrete water tanks at the Hall as part of the Dindi Arts Trail.

Story and photo supplied by CoM Secretary, Jackie Maughan

Your committee/reserve story?

If your committee would like to share a story for publication, please email us on voluntary.committees@delwp.vic.gov.au.

People love reading the stories, so please don't be shy! You can pick any theme or angle for your story, the more variety the better!

You can write the story yourself or if you'd like some help with the write-up, let us know and a DEECA staff member will get in touch to discuss options.

Foundation for Regional and Rural Renewal (FRRR)

In addition to Kinglake West Mechanics Institute Hall and Reserves Committee (see story above) the Foundation for Regional and Rural Renewal (FRRR) has provided assistance to various Crown land reserve committees of management in recent years.

To expore the potential of FRRR to assist your committee, see the FRRR website.

The 'About' section of the wesbite outlines that FRRR is a not-for-profit organisation that "provides funding and capacity building support at the hyper-local level" with "reach, relationships, networks, and know-how to align funding, big and small, to community-led solutions that build resilience and long-term viability and vitality of smaller remote, rural, and regional communities across Australia."
."

Grant information links on DEECA website

Under the heading 'Grants' the committees of management section of the DEECA website includes links to sites with information about available grants from DEECA and the Victorian Government.

Note: Best use of these grant pages requires some thought to the 'filters' used (for example filtering out grant rounds that have closed). Eligibility criteria also need to be closely scrutinised as not all grants listed will be available to or suitable for Crown land reserve committees of management.

Contacting DEECA

For day-to-day issues, including changes to committee member contact details, committee appointment processes, or other land management matters, the key DEECA staff for committees of management work in our six regional Land and Built Environment (LBE) teams.

Phone: You can reach your LBE Team by phoning the DEECA Customer Contact Centre on 136 186 and asking for the LBE Team that covers your part of the state.
Email: DEECA Customer Contact Centre on customer.service@delwp.vic.gov.au or one of the following emails for the regional LBE teams:

Barwon South West LBE Team

bsw.planning@delwp.vic.gov.au

Gippsland LBE Team

Traralgon.PropertyServices@delwp.vic.gov.au

Grampians LBE Team

publicland.grampians@delwp.vic.gov.au

Hume LBE Team

landadmin.hume@delwp.vic.gov.au

Loddon Mallee LBE Team

Publiclandenquiries.Northwest@delwp.vic.gov.au

Port Phillip (Melbourne Metro) LBE Team

Property.Portphillip@delwp.vic.gov.au

We acknowledge Victorian Traditional Owners and their Elders past and present as the original custodians of Victoria’s land and waters and commit to genuinely partnering with them and Victoria’s Aboriginal community to progress their aspirations.

Manage your preferences | Opt out using TrueRemove®
Got this as a forward? Sign up to receive our future emails.
View this email online.

PO Box 500
East Melbourne, | 8002 Australia

This email was sent to .
To continue receiving our emails, add us to your address book.