SEASPRAY was the only Gippsland representative at the Tidy Towns Awards in Melbourne last week (Monday October 28).
The Seaspray Ratepayers Association’s historic signboard walk, which has been constructed along the town’s foreshore reserve, was a finalist in the Heritage and Culture category.
It was an amazing achievement for the project to finish as a runner up alongside submissions from much larger towns across Victoria. The winner in the Heritage and Culture category was the ‘Kelly Trials Exhibition’ at the Beechworth Historic Courthouse. The third finalist in the category was Beechworth’s Golden Horseshoe Festival.
Seaspray Ratepayers Association president Kaylene Wheeler attended the awards ceremony at Melbourne’s South Wharf, alongside vice-president Zoe Curtis, and said it was an incredible honour for Seaspray to be named as a finalist in the awards against such strong competition.
“Seaspray has always had a successful history with the Tidy Towns awards with the town receiving many awards in the 1980s and ’90s,” Mrs Wheeler said.
“Our town looks more and more beautiful each year so we are thrilled to have been recognised by the judges again.”
The Seaspray Historic Signboard Walk was a project driven by Mrs Wheeler and Seaspray historian Sue Kennedy and includes 12 signboards installed along the town’s foreshore reserve between the caravan park and the Seaspray General Store between 2022-2023.
Mrs Wheeler said the signboards weren’t designed to provide a comprehensive history of the town, rather to offer ‘a smattering of Seaspray life’, including beachside fashions in the 1920s, the supply of fresh bread and milk to campers in the 1920s and 1930s, the beginnings of the general store, the clearing of the Sale to Seaspray road, early townscapes and the beginning of the tennis club.
“Preserving the town’s rich and wonderful history has always been a goal of the Seaspray Ratepayers Association,” Mrs Wheeler said.
“And in late 2021 the association voted overwhelmingly to support this project a way to record and showcase aspects of the town’s history for the benefit of locals and visitors.”
This project compliments other historic projects completed by the Seaspray Ratepayers Association over the past 10 years, including the 2016 centenary celebrations, turning two unstable pine trees in Memorial Park into two wood-carved statues (a World War 1 soldier and nurse) and a permanent plaque installed at the surf club to mark the 75th anniversary of a historic wartime incident that occurred on the beach on Boxing Day 1943 when a RAAF aircraft completing target exercises in the vicinity severed the lower legs of a young local girl and the foot of an older man.
In 2020 the Seaspray Ratepayers Association also restored a lone grave on the outskirts of town in conjunction of the 150th anniversary of the burial.
“These historic signboards have been overwhelmingly positively received,” Mrs Wheeler said.
“On weekends is it almost impossible to look along the foreshore walk and not see people reading the signboards. In summer this activity provides respite from the head of the beach, and in cooler months it provides an alternative activity for those who still want to visit the beach but conditions mean the sand and surf isn’t as welcoming as it could be.”
This is the 42nd year Keep Australia Beautiful Victoria has hosted the Tidy Town awards, which are open to all towns with populations of less than 20,000. Given Seaspray has a population closer to 200, it’s quite remarkable the town held its own in this year’s awards.
