A "socially distanced" car park flash mob, devised to lift the spirits of isolated families, has spelled the end of a community group's occupation of Goulburn Mulwaree Council property.
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Our Community Pantry had been using the Goulburn Showground's car park 2 to distribute their family hampers for six months, when they hit on an idea to brighten up the experience.
"We wanted to keep a human element in the event - people come for more than just the food," said the organisation's secretary Tracey Watkins, explaining that they planned a flash mob for May 9 in the style of many viral videos, with a roving camera and people in or beside their own parked cars.
"It keeps the joy and brings some happiness. This is a social outing for a lot of people at this time."
Our Community Pantry's founder, Paula Zrilic, said that they had seen an increased need for the inexpensive food hampers over the COVID-19 period.
"We've had to adapt," she said.
"Demand is greater but we have to make it safer, so we turned it into a drive-through service, where the volunteer staff take turns dropping the food into people's car boots.
"Council were aware of this and in support of it. We had police officers driving past each time, and they seemed happy."
But a complaint made to the police about the flash mob plan saw not only that event canceled, but the whole hamper distribution service abandoned by council.
Council's general manager Warwick Bennett said he had lost confidence in the organisation and would not allow them to continue to use council property.
Council's general manager Warwick Bennett said he had lost confidence in the organisation and would not allow them to continue to use council property.
"After being approached by local police regarding the activities of the Community Pantry, and their lack of respect for the government-imposed and community-accepted COVID-19 restrictions, council has made the decision not to allow this organisation onto any council areas until we can be convinced that they can be trusted to abide by the generally accepted rules to keep the community safe and stop any chance of spreading the coronavirus," he said in a statement.
"We do not have that confidence at present."
Officer in Charge of Goulburn, Inspector Matthew Hinton, said that he was under an obligation to act on the complaint, but was satisfied when the flash mob was canceled.
"They could still continue the hamper distribution as that falls under 'market stall' legislation," he said.
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Tracey Watkins said she they were only told they couldn't use the showground facility on the afternoon of Friday, May 8.
"We were happy to cancel the flash mob," she said.
"But we had 120 orders paid for, the truck was packed, and were about to start doing 130 orders in Bargo that Friday night.
"It's a huge thing we do along with our volunteers and it takes a lot of work.
"Later in the afternoon I got a text message from the council's recreation manager saying 'All good for tomorrow', so the next day we went down to car park 2 and did what we had to do.
"The community members were quite upset but we told them we were sorting it out."
So they were thrown when they received another message from the recreation manager asking if they had found another place, and that the general manager's decision still stands.
"It was all by text and email, no one called us to explain," said Tracey.
"Up until then they'd been fantastic, really helpful, they couldn't do enough for us. We had a very good relationship.
"We just don't understand."
While they searched for another site, the group used the garden of a member to do their distribution last Saturday, although because of its size they could only supply half their orders.
But yesterday, Our Community Pantry found that they'll now be able to use the car park behind the Australian Wool Handlers building.
But yesterday, Our Community Pantry found that they'll now be able to use the car park behind the Australian Wool Handlers building at 58 Finlay Road, Goulburn.
"AWH said they'd be delighted to have us," said Tracey.
"Distribution takes two hours, we don't need cover - we don't mind if we get wet.
"We'll provide all of the correct insurances and so on. We're here for the long haul, and we'll inform the police so everything is open and transparent.
"Our members will breathe a sigh of relief. I hope those that couldn't come last week will know we're back at it this week."
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