Precinct News Update as at 20.04.2009

The very successful Sportsman’s Dinner hosted by the MDSRC was held on 28 February. It has generated an enormous amount of goodwill in Maleny. Rotary has donated a beautiful trophy for annual presentation to the best junior sportsman or woman, and Peter Slipper MP has donated an honours board. We would encourage other sports and recreational clubs on the Range to join our existing 27 clubs so that they can be included in the annual awards selection process thereby making it truly representative. The current position with regard to the Maleny Precinct is that the presentations from all six potential land users, namely Greenhills, Barung, the Historical Society, Maleny Golf, MDSRC and the “Community Area”, were submitted to Council at the end of 2008, in accordance with Council’s timetable. Council Officer Robyn Douglas is preparing a response for Council, the results of which should be available by mid May. We are disappointed as the original timetable issued by SCRC was that the Councillors would receive a consolidated proposal in mid February for finalising the Precinct Master Plan. In an attempt to catch up on lost time we have requested that Council issue land leases to the various groups as soon as possible so that we can proceed with planning, developing business plans and fund raising. The “Precinct Working Group” set up by Councillor Jenny McKay which has proved to be very successful has been disbanded as stage one of the Precinct planning has now been concluded. We believe that there is merit in it being reconstituted later on in the year as there are still other planning and financial matters that need to be finalised. In the interim, we have formed our own community working group made up of the same six user groups, to discuss matters related to the Precinct development. We believe that the work of this community group is vital as there are still many aspects that need to be addressed, preferably sooner rather than later. Our application for grant money to pay for the formulation of a business plan has been submitted to the Queensland Government with the assistance of CPR consultants. SCRC will be requesting business plans for all Precinct user groups, and an overall business plan for the whole Precinct will be desirable. In order to benefit from contributions from our membership as a whole, and in consultation with our planning team and CPR, we will be publishing on our website a questionnaire that we would like our affiliated clubs and members to complete so that we can determine the requirements of all our members. We encourage additional clubs and individual members to join MDSRC so that they too can participate in the planning process. The more contributions we get, the better we can represent the Community.

Our AGM will be held on 21st May 2009 at the Maleny Bowls Club at 5.30 pm – we welcome all members and hope as many as possible can attend.

Mike Norman MDSRC www.mdsarcinc.com