On Saturday 29 July 2017 the Lyneham Community Association held the inaugural Light Up Lyneham event and over 500 people joined us.

It featured a Lantern Walk at sunset around the beautifully lit Lyneham Wetlands, live music, food and product stalls, and the brilliantly lit lion from the Prosperous Mountain Lion Dance group.

The aim of this event was to mark half way through winter and brighten a cold winter night. The depths of winter can be very cold in Canberra and we don’t have a strong culture of celebrating aspects of winter. We’re inclined to turn inwards and stay at home, so this event was created to remind people about the strong community ties that exist in their neighbourhood.

This event was kindly supported by Pete Lyon (of The Cashews fame) who provided his wonderful music to warm the event, the stall holders at the event — Lyneham Primary School P&C, the Black Mountain Girl Guides, North Canberra Burley Griffin Girl Guides, the Crossroads Church, Lisa Tozer from The Interview Coach, and Lisa Burkart’s Recycled Winter Clothing. We received funding for the event from the North Canberra Community Council who in turn are funded by the ACT Government.

We’ve processed the responses received so far to the 2017 Survey. Thanks to those people who took part. Your input is valuable.

Overall, the respondents valued the local community, green spaces and the local trees. Their greatest concerns were traffic and footpaths, and strongest wish was the increased use of community facilities.

Suggested focus for the LCA was improving the usability of parks, ovals and wetlands, monitoring development applications, and building community.

You can see the full analysis and responses in the interim survey report.

Around 100 people braved the rapidly dropping temperatures last Sunday afternoon at the inaugural LCA Summer Soiree at North Lyneham Park.

While the kids enjoyed cricket, and playing with the toys and equipment, the adults discussed some of the issues of concern and got to know each other. Among the common comments was lack of public BBQ (the perfectly good existing BBQ had been turned off a couple of years ago!), and the lack of public toilets (we had to hire a toilet for the event). We’d like to capture these and other suggestions in our 2017 survey. Keep those ideas rolling in!

It was a great afternoon, and wonderful to see so many of the local community getting together. Definitely an event to be repeated.

Special thanks go to Karlene, Di, and Jodie for doing the bulk of the organising for the event. The LCA appreciates the support of the North Canberra Community Council, who in turn are funded by the ACT government.