NEW leadership with the same focus on building community spirit has been elected for Bridgewater on Loddon Development.
Jill Hobbs, who headed the group’s sub-committee that organised last year’s back-to for the memorial hall centenary, is the new president.
She steps into the role filled by Shannon Brown for the last nine years.
“We’re a cohesive group of people and we want to grow that spirit of cohesion and involvement in the community,” Jill said.
“Bridgewater can be a challenging community to achieve that as, like anywhere else, we have people who hop in and do things but we also have others with a holiday home in our town.
“It would be great to have more involvement from them in what we do in the community ... more people strengthening the fabric of the community that attracts people to Bridgewater in the first place.”
Jill said BOLD would continue to lobby for action to manage the district’s corella population.
BOLD members have been agitating for more than a decade for State Government support to reduce corella numbers that residents say can be in plague proportions.
They are concerned that constant stripping of gum trees along the Loddon River threatens the health of trees and amenity of the area.
“They have gone away at the moment but they will be back within months,” Jill said.
Shannon said a high point of her presidency had been saving the town’s post office and its purchase by a community consortium.
“We were able to get together a group of people to buy the post office, build the business up and make sure our growing town and district could retain a vital local service,” she said.
The post office was sold to Kylie and Chris Hetherton in April.
“And the great thing was that ownership has stayed in local hands,” said Shannon.
While Shannon will continue as a member of BOLD, stepping down as president will allow time for another passion, campdrafting.