Kick the paint tin for the Malachi

October 3, 2024

According to The Free Dictionary, there's a phrase in Australian English that means "To make a financial contribution; to be responsible for paying a certain amount of money". It's "Kick the tin", and in this case it refers to a paint tin and it's to raise money to paint the Malachi Gilmore Hall.

Yes, there are paint tins.

Everyone loves the Malachi, but even its greatest fans have to admit that the outside is looking a bit tired so there is a campaign running to raise the funds to repaint the building.

Two fundraisers were held over the last few days.

The first was a sausage sizzle on Saturday, September 28, run by Rotary. As well as raising money for the Malachi repainting project, this had the advantage of letting people have a delicious sausage sandwich with onions without having to drive to Bunnings at Kelso and as it coincided with a power failure across much of the town it provided a place to get some hot food while the lights and stoves were out. (One of the customers sells burgers for a living but couldn't cook his own lunch so he came to the Malachi.)

Selling the sausage as well as the sizzle.

This what the Malachi had to say:

THANK YOU - to Oberon’s Rotary Club and the good people that purchased a sausage sandwich outside the Malachi yesterday. Fundraising has never tasted so yummy, and due to a long black out, for a couple of hours we were the only hot food in town! Thanks for the donations to our Help Paint the Malachi. Thanks to the team - Sue, Sharon, Neville and Matt.

The second was a short concert on October 1 by the Café Latte Orchestra led by Mark Walton. This is a 60-piece orchestra consisting mainly of brass and woodwind instruments as well as Sumiko Yanamura on piano, and they filed the hall with a great selection of music from classical and jazz genres.

Some fine music being made.

If you missed these events, you can still donate (tax deductible!!) at the following link:

Australian Cultural Fund

And one last thing, here's a video about the restoration.

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