By PAUL MILLAR
A COMMUNITY group that has provided shorts and T-shirts to forgetful campers for decades will soon lock the doors of its historic Portarlington rotunda base for the last time at the end of the month.
Bellarine Community Health Ladies Auxiliary has operated its charity shop for as long as anybody can remember, working in cramped conditions in a building that previously doubled as a weighbridge office and a band rotunda.
Margaret Collins, who coordinates the volunteers, believed they had been running the op shop since the 1970s.
She admitted a touch of sadness about leaving the building but said its size presented limitations.
The volunteers, about 30, will transfer their operations to sheds behind the local health centre.
“It’s a bit sad but we’ve been waiting for it to happen since they refurbished it. It’ll be sad for the people who have been there a lot longer than me,” Ms Collins said.
The rotunda opened in August 1910 with the town band belting out tunes to a large crowd. The weighbridge was still operating in 1958.
Ms Collins said the quirky building was busy during holiday periods but the auxiliary raised more funds at the sheds.
The building, in the heart of the town and overlooking the bay, has been earmarked to become an information centre.
Councillor Lindsay Ellis thanked the auxiliary as long-time custodians of the rotunda.
“Though their op shop the auxiliary has raised several hundred thousand dollars for the local community,” he said.
