Community halls are vital hubs in regional towns, and in Tasmania’s Huon Valley, they’ve long been managed by dedicated local committees.
However, the Huon Valley Council is proposing a significant shift: a complete centralisation of hall management.
Carolyn Booker, a long-time member of the Palais Management Committee, reveals that the Council plans to dismiss all existing volunteer hall committees after the financial year. Under the new system, the Council would handle all bookings, finances, and maintenance, with no direct involvement from local communities. While a Council Liaison Officer would be appointed, and “friends of” groups could form, these groups would have no power, simply acting as consultative bodies. Even local groups might have to pay to hire their own halls.
The Council’s main reasons for this change are increased Work Health and Safety (WHS) requirements and issues identified in past community consultations. However, critics question why volunteers haven’t been offered WHS training and whether the proposed changes truly reflect community feedback.
Concerns also exist that this centralisation could eventually lead to the sale of these community assets.
The proposed changes will be voted on by Councillors on June 25th. Residents who disagree with this centralisation are urged to contact their councillors and make their voices heard before this critical date, to ensure the halls remain connected to the communities they serve.
Past Councillor and long time Judbury Hall volunteer Ian Paul commented on social media:
This system has been tried before and failed …
All it achieved was to confuse hirers of the halls , angst in the community and making it almost impossible to arrange and organise the hire ! Are council going to be available weekends, public holidays and rostered days off!!
Who is responsible for cleaning
This system will not work!
Call your council representative and voice your concern!
These are COMMUNITY halls!
Ratepayer Ian Perkins adds:
So a single paid “liaison officer” for the whole valley is going to replace a 24/7 dedicated group of volunteers at each hall with a wide range of skills and hundreds of years experience between them that turn up to functions to ensure everything goes well! What could go wrong!
And a the final word from an article published in the Huon News 21 May 2025:
Despite acknowledging that community members and volunteers provide huge value to halls by “fostering community activation and connections” the council found that current hall hire processes are complex, placing a large burden on volunteers.
Mayor Sally Doyle said, “We are grateful for the tireless work of our hall committee volunteers, whose dedication has been vital to our community.”
Volunteers are encouraged to be involved in the transition period to a new model.
My name is Carolyn Booker and have been a member of the Palais Management Committee for 10 years – or at least until Council took us over last year. I am writing to you to discuss Saturday’s announcement by Council at their Hall’s Information session that all Huon Valley hall management committees would be dismissed soon after the end of the financial year – the timing depending on when Council’s new centralised booking system is implemented at each hall.
From the information imparted to us at the meeting, the following is planned:
- Council will handle all bookings for all the halls. Hirers will have to apply online through the booking system, Council will confirm the dates, take the fee, ensure that keys are left out, conduct pre and post event reviews of the hall and return bonds. Nothing will need to be done by the local community.there will be no Council hall committees
- all bank accounts will be transferred to Council
- possibly (and probably) all keys will have to be surrendered. You would think that they would leave a set with someone though
- all expenses will be paid for all the halls by Council, as will all purchases necessary for the operation of the hall
- A Liaison Officer will be appointed by Council to liaise with hirers and possibly the local community. This person/s will be paid for by the revenue collected from hall hires but they will be a Council employee.it will be possible for communities to form informal groups such as ‘friend of such and such hall’ but this group will have no power to do anything to their hall and will just be a consultative group which Council may or may not listen to
- if the ‘friends’ group – or any other group -wishes to hire its hall, they will have to complete an online hire form. They will not know what hires are scheduled for their hall and local groups may have to pay for the hire or they may not – the decision will be with Council.
So what to do.
This new system is to be voted on by Councillors at the June Council meeting – should be the 25th.
Most Councillors seem to have already made up their minds but they have not had any community input on the wide ranging effects of removing the community halls from the local people and centralising it with Council.
We will not know what is going on with our halls, we will have little say in anything relating to the halls and have no idea of the financial position of the halls. The halls will become buildings within our communities run by a centralised authority that will have a total disconnect from the community it was built to serve.
If we are to change the planned complete takeover of our halls then we must act quickly. There is a window of opportunity to make sure this system is not implemented. That window is from now until 25 June. If you do not agree with Council’s intended hall centralisation scheme then please lobby your councillors. Let as many people know in the community as possible of what is proposed and urge them to write letters, send emails, send letters to the Huon News and contact local radio. Complain to the Council.
What is Council’s rationale for changing what has been successfully in place for many years?:
The main reason is the increased requirements for work health and safety. Volunteers now have to be able to meet the guidelines and this can be quite onerous. Courses would have to be attended and paperwork would increase. I certainly acknowledge that as most others would. However, I know of no hall volunteer who has been asked by Council if they would consider doing such training. They are assuming that we will refuse to do it. Also, many other organisations have volunteers as an essential part of their activities and still manage to fulfil all the workplace requirements. Think of all the Op shops in our towns – all have training for their volunteers on an ongoing basis.
Council states that last year’s Community Consultation meetings at most of the halls identified issues relating to training of volunteers, the amount of paperwork now required for hires and that this led to their decision to remove the problem by dismissing the committees. I don’t believe that any of the models presented at this Consultation included the total annihilation of every hall committee in the valley.
At Saturday’s information session the CEO mentioned a number of times that many Council’s were disposing of their halls.
You have to wonder if this will be the eventual outcome of the removal of our halls from their communities – run them down with lack of care and maintenance – then declare that they are losing too much money and are not being utilised. I hope not.
If you do not agree with Council’s planned changes to the way our halls are run and maintained, ie from being managed by our communities to being managed totally by Council staff, then you have one chance at ensuring that such a system is not adopted by our elected Council members.
If we do nothing now then it will be too late come 25th June.
