My Chat with a Local - Margaret Guthrie

Margaret Guthrie is current President of Churchill & District Community Association. We talk to her on her role with the organization and the role of CDCA in the Churchill community.

CDNews: Margaret, good to talk with you. CDCA, what’s it all about?

MG: CDCA is primarily an advocacy body representing the local community on local matters. We advocate on a range of planning and infrastructure developments, amongst other things. For instance, this year we have been involved in the planning for a new residential subdivision that will see further housing constructed on Philip Parade.

We have also been seeking action on an upgrade of Tramway Road to address flooding issues – unfortunately, this is an issue on which we have been able to make little headway.

We had great success in advocating for an upgrade to the lighting of the Churchill Town Symbol! Likewise, new signage at the Commemorative Wall and the Town Symbol will appear in the future, thanks to the advocacy of CDCA.

Sometimes it is minor improvements that CDCA advocates for – like directional road signage to the Hockey Field. Visitors to the Regional Hockey ground complained that Google Maps led them to the bus-stop at Federation University, so CDCA approached Latrobe City Council to install signage on Monash Way and Tramway Road. Problem solved!

CDNews: Being President, that’s taking on a solid role, do you have regular meetings . . . and how do you get the meeting recommendations out to the community?

MG: Yes, CDCA meets regularly, every second month. We also do some of our business on-line via email. Sometimes matters arise that require a response before our next scheduled meeting. For instance, a Council officer may forward CDCA a draft plan or design for comment, so I would circulate that to members via email, with a request to provide feedback by a specific date, in time for me to collate comments and provide advice to the officer concerned.

Our meeting Minutes are circulated to members of course, but they are also publicly available on our website. We also do our best to keep readers of the Churchill & District News informed via our regular column each month!

CDNews: Can you talk a little of the current activities CDCA is involved in?

MG: The lack of accessible public toilets at the Churchill Shopping Centre has been a focus of our recent activity. In response to community concern, we drew up a petition to the owners of West Place Shopping Centre, calling on them to provide a public toilet facility. Unfortunately, there was no response from them, but we did pursue the issue with Latrobe City Council which has resulted in Council allocating funds to provide a solution.

The Churchill - Shop Local markets are also one of our major on-going activities. We facilitate three craft markets at the shopping centre each year, in partnership with Churchill Neighbourhood Centre and Churchill & District News. We aim to bring the community together and encourage folk to shop in Churchill. CDCA provides the required funding, sometimes with our own funds if we are unable to obtain sponsorship. We organize the entertainment and all the free stuff, including the sausage sizzles (but we leave the cooking to others!). The shopping vouchers given away at the markets are paid for by CDCA – we do not want our local retailers to be out-of-pocket; we want them to have more customers!

CDNews: Do you feel that CDCA has made achievements in the time it has existed, and what has been its major achievement so far for the community?

MG: A long-term focus of CDCA has been to ensure that, as our town develops, we continue to have recreational pathways in and around the township. Churchill’s green spaces and walking tracks are a feature well worth maintaining, and CDCA has a long history of advocating for parks and pathways, particularly as new developments occur.

Many of the established recreational pathways came about because of CDCA’s advocacy; one such example is the well-utilised link coming up from the southern end of the Eel Hole Creek track along Philip Parade to Hazelwood House.

The construction of a Council owned and maintained public toilet in the centre of town has been a long-standing goal of CDCA. This was an agenda item when I first joined CDCA back in 2002! If CDCA continues to advocate for this, I believe we will see construction begin in the next 12 months or so and that will be a really major achievement for the community!

CDNews: Your membership - is it growing?

MG: No, not really. We have a core group of members who remain committed, but we have struggled to recruit new members. For each new member who joins, someone leaves the area (meaning they are no longer eligible to be a member), so really, we are just managing to maintain a presence.

CDNews: How can the community participate in CDCA?

MG: Come along to one of our meetings! Any local resident is welcome to attend; we meet on the second Thursday of every second month; dates are advertised in the News and on our website. We meet downstairs in the Churchill Town Hall, start at 7pm and finish at 9.

People can join CDCA either by attending a meeting or simply by downloading a membership application from our website (cdca.org.au) and emailing the completed form to info@cdca.org.au

We encourage participation and meeting attendance is not mandatory. Membership includes being on our email list and receiving assorted updates, correspondence and meeting Minutes.

We also have a Facebook page and locals are welcome to contact us using the ‘message us’ option on either our Facebook page or through our website.