A Christmas barbecue is likely to act as the grand farewell for Nunamara Hall after Launceston City Council agreed to pursue the sale of the building at its November meeting.
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The council voted unanimously to begin advertising the sale of the building, which will leave the Myrtle Park camping grounds as the town’s nearest community space.
Nunamara Hall venue management committee member Melissa Burr said residents had rallied together to save the hall since learning it was under threat of being sold earlier this year.
“Early this year (council) came back and said it looks like we'll shut the hall down unless you can prove that it's worthwhile,” Mrs Burr said.
“We formed a new committee and we've had several functions throughout the year, raised up some money, enough to start paying the Aurora bill again, plus we've got a petition going which has over 150 signatures.”
Mrs Burr said the committee had attracted 11 committee members in the wake of the imminent sale.
“We've always struggled to fill a committee in previous years - we’ve only had four or five - but this year we had to turn people away from it because we're at our maximum.”
The hall and grounds proved invaluable for a period of three weeks in January this year when a bushfire broke out at Mount Barrow, with a team of helicopters, fire vehicles and personnel taking up residence at the hall.
Mrs Burr said while she expected the hall wouldn't be sold until after January, the news had come as a major disappointment for residents.
“We've had it in the pipeline to get a craft group up and running and all different kinds of activities happening, there was some line dancing and stuff but we thought there's no point in getting too much happening, we were really pushing to get the council's decision first before we went ahead with too much.
“All our efforts have fallen on deaf ears, it's very disappointing and there's not a lot we can do about it apart from come along to the community barbecue and say farewell to the Grand Old Dame of Nunamara.”
The barbecue will be held on December 17 from 4pm with all Nunamara residents welcome to attend.
For more information contact Mrs Burr on 63993512.