Editorial

In the last couple of months there has been a lot going on in Cherry Gardens so a good chance to pen a catch up. In the midst of a Cherry Gardens winter in the middle of our third lockdown for COVID19 what better way to spend a couple of hours but reflect on our district.

Property Market

The first thing that comes to mind is the crazy property market. Typically, properties in Cherry Gardens take a few months to sell. You have to be the right kind of person and family to want to live here but with the new world of COVID, having some space and property, seems like a smart idea and people can see the value. 

Many properties have sold in recent months and the buzz is that a record price of close to $1.6million was recently paid for one property. With all the recent sales we have to say farewell to a number of families that have lived here for many years. 

Rob and Jenny Edwards who have lived here for over 30 years and both participated actively in the CFS and Cherry Chatter groups.  Jenny was also the president of the Cherry Gardens Ironbank Netball Club for many years.

Cathy Weir lived here for over 10 years and was also a member of the Cherry Chatter group for many years as well as a deliverer of the newsletter. Cathy will still be in the area until the beginning of next year.

And a bunch of other people who have sold but we may not know who you are. We hope you have enjoyed living in Cherry Gardens and wish you all the best wherever you may be going.

Rec Ground

Next to mind is the Recreation Ground. In mid-June the new club changerooms were lifted into place by a huge crane. The builder is Centina and their factory is in the old Holden factory at Elizabeth in one of the cavernous warehouse buildings left empty when GM decided to close the factory. The changerooms were built out there then dismantled into modules and driven to Cherry Gardens on 5 semitrailers. There had been a bit of rain over the couple of previous days and the special entrance that had to be made off Cherry Gardens road in order to get the changerooms on site deteriorated very quickly. On the first day, 3 modules got offloaded and put in place but then one prime mover got bogged on the way out and we had to get the entrance re-made overnight. Day 2 and the rest of the modules were delivered and craned into place and everyone managed get out ok. From that day it rained pretty well every day and the Centina guys reckoned they had never seen so much rain in their life! Welcome to Cherry Gardens….

The build was finished just in time for the grand opening on July 17th which was “Club Day” for all the sporting clubs and Recreation Ground. It was a fantastic day even though the weather was not really helping out with squally winter weather.

At the opening it was spot the politician with all the state MP’s (Steve Murray, Josh Teague and Sam Duluk) as well as Rebekha Sharkie and Erin Thompson, Mayor of Onkaparinga Council and Geoff Eaton our local Councillor in attendance. The ceremony was also well attended by all the club officials, life members, supporters and a good bunch of locals as well.

On the day the footy club had some good wins and all the parents of the Moddies were proud to watch their kids enter the field through a guard of honour by the senior players.

At the end of the day a food van from Smokin’ It Up served up a great range of burgers and then the supporters celebrated the wins into the evening and had a chance to take a walk through the new changerooms.

better mobile phone coverage

We have received some good news that will provide the district with a much better mobile phone coverage. A contract has now been signed with Telstra to install a 4G repeater on the NBN Tower next to the Recreation Ground. This was an initiative that Cherry Chatter has been leading for a couple of years (or longer) and finally the Federal govt, State govt and Telstra have come to an agreement to jointly fund the installation of this service.

The bad news is that it will take nearly a year for this to be completed but at least we have received advice that it will happen!

SOme sad news

Finally, some sad news. Through the nearly 30 years that Cherry Chatter has been with us there have been many people that have come and gone. One of those people was David Thomas. David and his family lived down Star and Arrow Road. They moved here after returning from a stint in Papua New Guinea and became part of our group. Belinda was a horse lover and wanted to have land so she could have horses and their 2 young lads enjoyed being part of the footy club junior’s teams.

While they moved out of the district quite a few years ago, David and the boys, Chris and Ben, continued to be members and players with the footy club, with Ben still playing for the senior’s team in 2021. David was the Treasurer for several years.

Sadly, David passed away suddenly back in May and we offer our condolences to his family and friends.

For over a decade he worked for the SA Jockey Club and was a part of the horse racing industry here in SA where he was known as “The Chief”. At a recent race meeting he was remembered with the race 8 being known as the David Thomas Memorial Race. 

David Thomas with his sons, Chris and Ben