GAIL and Gary White have given up much of their spare time for more than 20 years to take care of the day-to-day running of the Ross Uniting Church which sits on top of the hill at the southern end of the village.
So the announcement of its sale recently, while not surprising, cut to the quick. Mrs White’s Aunty Karly had been heavily involved in the church and was on the Par- ish Council. As a child Mrs White had helped her with her duties and fundraiser fairs, while also attending summer school at the church.
The White’s daughter attended Sunday School in the church and the whole family was involved in preparing the combined churches fundraising lunches at the Campbell Town Show. Working together to support their community, the Uniting Church was like an extension of their own home and family, so it was an easy transition to a formal arrangement organising its ongoing maintenance from rewiring and floor polishing to fencing, functions and bookwork.
“Gary and I and my family keep it clean, set up for functions, look after the cemetery, working closely with minister Dennis Cousins who has now semi-retired,” Mrs White said. “It’s been two years
since there’s been enough attendees to hold a service so there’s no doubt the church is underutilised.”
Mr White has always helped mow the lawns, only recently handing the job over to a contractor. He opens and closes the church on weekends and the Wool Centre has been taking care of weekdays. Like so many other churches the dwindling congregation, combined with rising maintenance costs, has led to
he church being put up for sale. “There’s no money coming in, just going out,” Mrs White said. “I love that church but it’s been hanging on for a long time, mainly thanks to Don Rodham who has fought so hard to keep it open, and an ageing group of men who have mowed the cemetery and grounds in rotation for years for free, but I realise this has to happen,” Mrs White said.
“People have a different life- style, a different mindset these days. The church box has barely been covering the electricity and very few people get married in a church these days.”
Local resident and Space Pioneers Foundation director Kim Peart has called on supporters of his mission to use space science to divert a nuclear war and Armageddon, to help him raise money to buy the church. He said he’d written to the Uniting Church asking for more information, and he could envisage it being used as a house of peace, with a peace park in the surrounding grounds. The Anglican diocese has not yet said how much it wants for the church nor appointed a real estate agent.
Mr Peart said that he also had concerns that the only decent access for vehicles involved with the maintenance of the local pool through the church gates would be lost. “Northern Midlands Council had the opportunity to accept a gift of land behind the pool from the State Government when the police house was being prepared for sale, and it knocked it back despite that being a way to
future-proof access to the pool,” he said.
Cr Richard Archer, who sits on the Ross District Committee, agreed that with the sale of the church the adjoining land was at risk of future development that may or may not enhance the town of Ross. “Council is going to have to be careful with zoning and per- missions around this prime piece of land with the core of Ross potentially in line for listing as a national heritage site in the future for the church site to be desecrated in some way by the wrong type of development would be a terrible mistake,” he said.
Designed in traditional Gothic Style, with an interior ceiling of Oregon pine and pews made from Tasmanian blackwood, the current Uniting Church replaced the first Methodist Church which was built in 1839 but fell into dis- repair. When the new church was built in 1885 it was due to the generosity of local pioneering families, such as the Hortons, Riggalls and Parramores that the building was paid in full. The total cost for its construction had been 4350 pounds.
Like the two other churches in Ross, the Anglican Church, which was sold earlier this year, and the Catholic Church that is still operational, the Uniting Church is a tourist drawcard. It’s stained glass windows are breathtaking and visitors often comment about its “warm” feeling, Mrs White said. “Not everything can stay the same but I admit that some days I wish it could just go back a little bit.”