UNALIGNED WITH THE PREVAILING BULLSHIT SINCE 1986 The Byron Shire Echo • Volume 36 #29 • December 29, 2021 • www.echo.net.au
Self-isolating, North Coast style
Broken Head community rallies for its church Hans Lovejoy The newly formed Broken Head Society Inc has put an Expression of Interest (EOI) to buy St Oswald’s memorial church from the Grafton Diocese for $1m, so it can ‘be held in trust, in perpetuity’. The decision by the Anglican Church to sell St Oswald’s Memorial Church in Broken Head sparked widespread community concern back in November, given that the 99-year-old church was gifted by residents as a dedicated memorial to three local men killed in WWI. The Byron Bay RSL Sub-Branch, Byron Shire Council, and the descendants of the
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deceased soldiers all strongly oppose the sale. St Oswald’s was built as a memorial to Arthur Beaumont Goard, who was killed in World War I on October 4, 1917, at Ypres, Belgium. St Oswalds also commemorates two other young men from Broken Head who were killed in that war – Frederick Flick and Frank Kimpton. This was a tremendous loss to the Broken Head community which, at the time, consisted of just twelve families. Simeon Michaels told The Echo residents formed the Society ‘to build community in the Broken Head area in general, and specifically, to save the church’. An Anglican Diocese spokesperson told The Echo in late November that the sale was
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part of a ‘major restructuring program’, which included meeting ‘the costs arising from historical claims of abuse’.
ëĈſĶǕ Ĉĕ ŔëĎĕ ćƷ ƐIJſĕĕ Ŕĕŕ At the time, the Diocese acknowledged the memorial and the sacrifice made by the three men, however said, ‘In recent decades however, support for St Oswald’s has dwindled to the extent that only three Broken Head residents were attending on a regular Sunday’. The Echo put questions to the Anglican Diocesan Registry as to whether they would accept the offer, but was told they had closed for Christmas. According to the Society’s EOI, which has
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been sent to the Anglican Diocese, the group has ‘received legal advice and raised funds to mount a legal challenge on equitable and administrative grounds’. ‘Julian Burnside QC has expressed interest in acting for us on this matter. We acknowledge the undesirability of a legal battle’. The residents write, ‘We also acknowledge that you are undertaking the sale of properties to meet the compensation for the historical child sexual abuse. We support you taking action to address the wrongdoings. ‘We are therefore offering to purchase the site for $1 million and enter into negotiations with the Church’s Corporate Trustees to ▶ Continued on page 5
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