Funding for extra King River Hall space a boost for club’s community activities

A new studio being added to its hall will help the King River Recreation Club run a wider range of activities. The club has received a $57,840 Lotterywest grant to build the additional space separate from the 123-year-old heritage-listed King River Hall, which it uses as its base. President Kathy Suggate said the club had needed the extra space for quite some time and the club had been exploring funding options since 2021. “We’ve had to really limit what we do in the hall in terms of courses and classes,” she said. “We’ve got some that we hold off-site because we can’t do them in the hall; things like mosaics, pottery and other messy arts stuff. “Once we have a new studio, we’ll be able to bring that all back into the fold.” The grant was presented on Wednesday by Albany MLA Rebecca Stephens who said the wider community should keep an eye out for events at the hall. “I’m really looking forward to seeing how the activities of this club build on community connections using the mediums of art, education, and social activities,” she said. Ms Suggate said the hall played an important role in helping the King River community maintain its identity. She said in recent years members of the community had “got the ball rolling” by asking how the hall could be used. “The previous president, Joan Watkinson, was really the visionary behind that because she started to bring people in to get them involved and let them do stuff,” she said. “It really took off like crazy and the community out here is really talking about the hall — ‘I’ve heard about the hall’, ‘There’s lots going on at the hall’ — but there is more that could be going on at the hall.”