Puzzling: Portarlington’s Sylvia Ash and Ocean Grove’s Neville Burrows with some of Springdale Neighbourhood Centre’s many jigsaw puzzles.
By John Van Klaveren
NO ONE has any trouble finding the next piece in the puzzle at Springdale Neighbourhood Cen-tre.
The bigger problem is deciding which puzzle to choose – the centre’s Jigsaw Club has 5000 of them stacked floor to ceiling and almost wall to wall.
“Actually I don’t really know exactly how many there are,” club coordinator Neville Burrows admits.
“I just know there’s an awful lot of them.”
The club began in Neville’s Ocean Grove lounge room with friends and acquaintances dropping in for a cuppa, a chat and a jigsaw.
“It was very sociable because when we first moved down from Melbourne we didn’t really know anyone,” Neville said.
But it wasn’t long before the club “started taking over the house”.
Springdale centre coordinator Anne Brackley offered the solution.
“The council put the shelves in and the club continued to grow, with people adding jigsaws to the collection,” Neville said.
“I had a bloke turn up on my doorstep one day saying he had a few jigsaws after clearing out the cupboards – he had 40 of them.”
Neville is now kept busy on the first Thursday of every month dealing with an increasing number of aficionados drawn to the jigsaw room.
“It’s a good pastime, particularly for older people with time on their hands because it keeps the brain active.
“There’s something about jigsaws that drives people to complete the challenge.
“We get people using a variety of techniques and approaches. Some are more creative, looking for inspiration from the jigsaw gods to find the right piece for that frustratingly annoying gap.
“And some are more logical. I sort all the pieces into groups first then build little blocks and gradually join them together.
“Others might do all the sky or the grass first but, be warned, not all our puzzles lend themselves to doing the border first,” Neville laughed.
He said families often borrowed puzzles just to have around and occasionally put a piece in until it was done.
Neville said he was keen to open the jigsaw room more often to allow more people to use them.
He said more information was available by phoning him on 5255 2837 or visiting spring dale.org.au.
