Hiring the Les Reardon Hall and Reserve
The Les Reardon Reserve and Community Hall are available for hire by local residents for recreation, functions and meetings. Whilst many local community groups use these facilities regularly, specifically being a Bywong residents is not a prerequisite for hiring the hall for a function, meeting, workshop, training course etc…
The hall has a fully equipped kitchen and there is ample parking at the rear of the building. The capacity of the Hall is around 50–70 for seated dinners and meetings and approximately 75–100 for standing functions.
The hall has a storeroom with tables and chairs as well as toilets located inside the building and two toilets located externally, one of which is easily accessible by wheelchair.
There is a BBQ externally provided by the Bywong Community Association for hall hirers to use, the hirer only needs to provide their own gas.
The adjacent playground is a fantastic addition to the facility and has already proven popular for primary aged birthday parties. The facility is not hired out for teenage parties, in particular 18th and 21st.
Use of the dressage arena for riding instruction, located adjacent to the Hall, may be arranged via the Geary’s Gap Pony Club. The community arena is available for anyone to use without booking or fee, this is located away from the Hall, to the South East.
Camping and erection of tents is not permitted on the grassed areas.
Booking Information
The hiring of the Hall is done through the Les Reardon Reserve Facility Management s.355 Committee. The Bywong Community Inc kindly hosts the hall and Reserve hiring information for them.
The Committee has authority to undertake the care, control and management of Council’s facility, its functions and its assets. The Committee controls hiring, and can accept or refuse hire requests subject to the conditions in the Hire Agreement.
If you wish to hire the Bywong Hall please read the following documents:
Then email the booking officer (link below) with your requested hire dates, times and information to see if it is available for hire.
Fees and Charges
| Hire of Les Reardon Reserve & Hall | Year 24/25 Fee (inc.GST) |
|---|---|
| COMMERCIAL | |
| Commercial entity FULL DAY 9:00am–12:00 Midnight 15 hours total | $310 |
| Commercial entity HALF DAY 9:00am–4:00pm OR 5:00pm–12:00 midnight 7 hours Maximum | $155 |
| CASUAL | |
| Casual hire of hall only FULL DAY 9:00am–12:00 Midnight 15 hours total | $160 |
| Casual hire of hall only HALF DAY 9:00am–4:00pm OR 5:00pm–12:00 midnight 7 hours Maximum | $100 |
| Casual hire of hall only THIRD DAY 9:00am–1:00pm OR 2:00pm–6:00pm OR 7:00pm–11:00pm 4 hours Maximum | $55 |
| Casual hire of hall only 2 HOURS | $26 |
| BOND | |
| Bond full day hire | $300 |
| Bond half a day and third of day hire | $150 |
Les Reardon and his Reserve
by Peter McCullagh
Les Reardon served the people of Yarrowlumla Shire in many ways for many years. He was a Shire councillor for some decades and, for a substantial part of that period, the Shire President. His other formal contribution to the wider region was as the Yarrowlumla delegate to the Southern Tablelands County Council. County councils, which were based on a dozen or so shire councils, had responsibility for electricity reticulation, maintenance and supply. Les was President of the STCC for more than a decade, concurrently with his period of leadership of the Shire. Both of these responsibilities entailed many hours per week (nominally remunerated) but listing them fails to tell the full story about the man.
Les liked people and nothing made him happier than being able to help them. From the early 1970s on he was the last broad acre farmer in a district that was rapidly becoming home to the ’40 acre farmers’. Many of these people had minuscule awareness of rural living. They frequently needed advice and/or ‘hands-on’ help and Les was extremely generous in providing both. It was often considered by those aware of these contributions that his own farm suffered, and this was almost certainly so on some occasions.
It is interesting to reflect, at this time of rediscovery of ‘conflict of interest’, on Yarrowlumla Shire Council practice in the 1970s. Les Reardon deliberately refrained from undertaking any subdivision during his period as President while much of the land in the district was subject to small acre development. Applications from family relatives would come to the Council table from time to time and, invariably, as soon as the paper hit the deck, Les would declare his relationship and potential conflict of interest. My impression, during 3 terms on the Council, was that Les’ potential interests deliberately came off second best.
After standing down from the Council around the mid-1980s Les was subject to major illness for the remainder of his life but bore this with great fortitude. He continued to want to help people. I recall his discharge letter from the South Sydney Hospital where he had been recovering having had bilateral below knee amputations. The discharging doctor wrote to record how much Les, in his wheelchair had set out to encourage other patients in his ward.
So much for the man: what about his Reserve? Yarrowlumla Shire Council applied a policy of obtaining, from anyone submitting a development application which would create new blocks, a contribution towards providing additional community services commensurate with the extra demands likely to be generated by the consequent increase in numbers of residents. The
form of the contribution could be either in cash, on a pro rata basis determined by the number of new blocks created or, less frequently, as a block of land which could be developed by Council to serve future community needs. The choice between these alternatives would generally depend on the location of the proposed development and its proximity to any land already reserved for community use. Obviously, other factors such as topography and accessibility also influenced the decision between cash and land.
The size of the contribution extracted from the developer was quite substantial. Taking the Birriwa Rd development as an example, one block out of 8 or 9 went to the Council. One can assume that this cost was factored into the sale price of the remaining blocks. In the late 1970s, the Council had been searching for a block that would be suitable for general community purposes in the rapidly developing Bywong district. I recall that we were considering buying land on the open market, or asking for some from the Lands Department but, despite quite a few excursions, nothing could be found. The arrival of the subdivision application relating to what was to become Birriwa Rd was welcomed as an opportunity to obtain suitably located land for any future community use. It also provided the Council with the opportunity to recognise Les’ contribution.
Before writing this note, I checked that my memory about the origins of the Les Reardon Reserve were accurate by talking with Howard Doust , who served the Shire as Engineer for many years (a service recognised in the naming of Doust Rd).
In negotiating the transfer of the Reserve block to the Council, it was explicit that it was to be dedicated to general community use, which could be determined over future years by residents in the area. Howard remarked that he was aware of only one instance in which a developer’s contribution of land was allocated for other than general community use (that occurred in Wamboin when, of two blocks simultaneously available, one was earmarked for equestrian use and the second for other use).
As a postscript to recalling Yarrowlumla’s performance in relation to subdivision, I remember instances in which development was undertaken involving the sale of existing portions. Council had no power to prescribe the nature of any access road that was constructed to service these portions, nor could it extract any contribution towards future community use.
Consequently, the blocks may have sold for less than others in subdivisions which had incurred a contribution to the Council.
The downside was that the Council, I believe very reasonably, did not accept any future responsibility for maintenance – an ongoing case of caveat emptor.
Please use and enjoy Les’ Reserve. That is what he wished.