SATURDAY 17 OCTOBER 2026: Tomerong Hall will be abuzz with music, art, oral history, film and performance—plus a big beautiful birthday cake around 7pm—as the community celebrates the centenary of Tomerong Hall with a festive all-day party. This is the culmination of a year of planning, plotting, painting and recording, a cultural feast for all from 12 noon that wraps together the different cultures and generations that make this village special.
Tomorrow’s monumental celebration comes after a year-long collaborative effort driven by the dedicated members of the Tomerong Hall Centenary Committee (a sub-committee of the Tomerong Hall Committee), alongside an incredible network of regional artists, musicians, performers and village friends.
Head down to Hawken Road tomorrow to enjoy the talent and heart on display. Here is your sneak peek at the wonderful fruits of everyone’s labour:
What Awaits You: Art, Sound and Living History
1. Monumental Murals and Immersive Soundscapes
- Stunning Outdoor Panels: Dr Vanessa Barbay has spent months hand-painting five massive marine-ply panels for the new outdoor stage. Translating historical archives and vintage community photographs—from old bullock teams to local cricketers—these panels also feature authentic handprints from Tomerong Public School Koori kids. Vanessa has meticulously painted each panel twice with pre-mixed exterior paint, which will ensure the panels are weatherproof and long-lasting, using a technique she has developed over many years of creating murals and enduring outdoor artworks, including the series of large panels along the Bherwerre Wetland walk at Sanctuary Point. Read more about Vanessa’s panels below.
- Engaging Audio & Installations: Step inside the hall from 12 noon to explore Julie Cunningham’s digital video works and Dr Nigel Helyer’s ingenious sound sculptures, featuring wooden tea trolleys fitted with everyday objects and recorded village memories. Overhead, Akira Kamada’s “100” timber-offcut roof sculpture will glow at dusk like candles on a birthday cake.
2. A 1940s-Style “Concert Party” & Local Icons
- The Variety Show Reborn: Running from 5.15pm–7pm, curator Regina Hellman has rebooted the nostalgic 1940s “concert party” tradition. Expect a lively lineup of four local storytellers (such as third-generation bullocky Ron McKinnon and community advocate Kate Child) interspersed with eclectic performances.
- Music, Dance and Retro Decor: Enjoy post office ladies performing clogging dances, the local women’s choir revisiting a historic local poem about doilies (Circle and Spiral), belly dancing and old-time Americana. The hall itself has been magically transformed into a retro 1950s dance hall with bespoke bunting and fabric rosettes sewn by local volunteers. Throughout the day, Amanda Sheard will also host engaging “In Conversation” sessions with local RFS volunteers, historians and community figures.
3. Heralding the Birthday Cake with the Centurion Fanfare
- A Musical Masterpiece: As evening approaches, composer Megan Kovalik’s bespoke musical fanfare, Centurion, will herald the cutting of the hall’s birthday cake at 6.45pm. Read more about Megan’s composition below.
- Cultural Harmony: Blending a didgeridoo played by Vincentia High School teacher Jonathon Hill from one side door, a Scottish bagpipe drone from the other, and a rich central weave of oboe, tenor saxophone and bird calls, the piece is a breathtaking audio symbol of diverse cultures coming together. The evening party rounds out with old-time Americana and western swing from the band The Lucky Star starting at 7.30pm.
The Story Behind the Party
Project coordinator and “relative newbie” Tomerong resident Regina Hellman was a driving force behind this project, which received funding from Festivals Australia that meant the initial ideas of capturing oral history became a full-blown cultural project and event.
We chatted with Regina as she was holding her breath on the eve of the party, hoping that everything will go to plan.
She says it started with storytelling. She and fellow committee member Rosemary Tabone contacted locals about the project and it took on a life of its own. Talking to one person led to an introduction to another person and so on, with stories, photos, memorabilia and more surfacing as the project went on.
“We were fortunate to get the funding,” says Regina, “which meant we could elevate what we were doing through the work of three great artists who live and work in the Shoalhaven, Dr Vanessa Barbay, Julie Cunningham and Dr Nigel Helyer. These stories could now be told in different ways through their different practices [of painting, video and sound/sculpture].”
The “main event” of the day, if you like, is the concert party from 5pm–7pm which Regina says is inspired by events of yore.
“Back in the 1940s, the Tomerong community used to have these things called ‘concert parties’ which were variety shows and they would take them to Neriga and Milton, raising funds for the fire brigade and Red Cross.
“Our concert party is riffing on this, I’ve invited local storytellers and performers for variety acts and stories.”
The four key storytellers in this concert party are Ron McKinnon, a third-generation Tomerongian who still operates a bullock team and is a skilled bushman, muso Peter Hughes who wrote the Tomerong song in the 1990s and is going to perform it, fundraiser extraordinaire Meryl McGinn who’s been in Tomerong for 40 years, and Kate Child who was an activist in her youth involved in the SHUT campaign for Shoalhaven Unwanted Tip (also featured on one of Vanessa’s panels).
The concert will include women’s choirs, clogging, belly dancing and a few little surprises.
Regina says, by good fortune the centenary project coincided with some other works at the hall, including the construction of a new stage and new gardens, which has worked in very well for the celebrations, especially the installation of Vanessa’s panels which will be placed as a backdrop to the stage.
“People are coming from far and wide to catch up again, they are looking forward to a big natter and a yarn, sharing memorabilia and photos,” Regina says.
“One thing that surprised me, I always thought it was a tiny, sleepy little village. But the Clyde Shire Council building was actually in Tomerong. It was a central point between Nowra and Ulladulla, it was a civic centre.”
Conversation with Dr Vanessa Barbay
This is an edited interview with Vanessa ahead of the installation of her commissioned works for the Tomerong Hall centenary celebrations.
JBW: That was a marathon project, creating these five enormous panels for the Tomerong Hall centenary.
Vanessa: “I didn’t really get a school holiday, I just painted the whole time. I pretty much finished one per month. I had to put them on the ground so that I was on top of them and painting.”
JBW: How did you choose the theme for each panel?
Vanessa: “That was done by [project coordinator] Regina and the committee. I was asked to create them from images they provided, historical images. Community members had found some, Regina found some online, we asked the archivists at the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum to find images for us.”
JBW: There’s a lot of symbolism in the panels as well.
Vanessa: “Some of it, with my artistic licence, I added in, like the cups formation from an old Olive Cotton photo [of teacups, acclaimed for its elongated shadows appearing like tutu-clad ballerinas]. That’s really Aussie and because she was from that time around when the hall was built, it suited the panels.
“I wanted to make sure there was a connection with Aboriginal culture. It was a very white culture, history, so… I asked my head teacher [at Vincentia High School] who is Koori, what do you suggest? She said, why don’t you get the Koori kids from Tomerong Public School to put their handprints on it?”
JBW: You use house paint, are the panels going outside?
Vanessa: “They’re going on the new outdoor stage as a backdrop for performers. All the materials are built for outdoors. I had to get all the colours as sample pots and then paint two coats of primer and weather shield both sides and two coats of the whole painting. So that was very time-consuming.
“I ended up recording the times it took me to paint the panels and some were ridiculously long, the last one was 93.5 hours. The bushfire panel I can understand, that was 96 hours.
“The final coat is the long one. I have to be really neat because I’m doing one colour at a time. There’s no blending, just one colour like little coloured shapes.
“House paints don’t like mixing, they’re not made like normal [artist’s] paint, they’re tinted bases so mixing them they get kind of grey.
“This is a particular method I built up over years and years of doing murals.”
JBW: What’s something that stands out to you in this process of what’s on the panels?
Vanessa: “I found doing the black and white photos really fascinating.
“The old bullock photos of the community, and there’s this amazing one of women, the all-women team on a truck pulling logs. That was fascinating, the old photos.
“Then how to break down all the grays. The photos are really old and quite blurry, a lot of them. So when I enlarged them, I ended up including the distortions and weird things. Some of the cricketers are quite distorted, but to me, they’re like ghosts from so long ago.
“And painting the medals, I’ve never painted medals in my life, and for some reason, they really have that photo-realist quality about them. I was surprised by how they turned out. I got a bit excited with them. By the last panel I was really getting into the medals and even the cricket ball. The last thing I did was the white stitches on the cricket ball on that panel, and it just went, oh my gosh, that just pops now.”
Conversation with Megan Kovalik
This is an edited interview with musician, music teacher and composer, Megan, ahead of the performance of her commissioned music for the Tomerong Hall centenary celebrations.
JBW: What is a fanfare?
Megan: “A fanfare is music that heralds the arrival of something, the arrival of someone important or the opening of an important event. Think, the arrival of kings or queens into their court. And the trumpets lining the side.
“The whole inspiration [for Centurion, Megan’s fanfare for Tomerong Hall] is drawing on all the different cultures and people that have populated the area and made it their home. I’m working with a didgeridoo player to connect us to that heritage. Then the bagpipe’s going to be doing a drone. I wanted him to play [more] stuff but it’s way too loud in the space.
“We’re gonna have them on opposite sides of the hall, on the side doors so we’ve got the different cultural drones going across. Because there is quite a strong Scottish heritage. In the middle, oboe and tenor sax.
“I’ve drawn on the bird calls in the area for some of the melodic stuff. I wrote a tune that I had hoped to get played on the bagpipe. So it’s very Scottish inspired, very Celtic. I do a ‘theme and variations’ thing, and it ends up being more of a traditional baroque fanfare vibe by the end.”
JBW: How long did it take you to write the fanfare?
Megan: “Regina invited me to do this [some time ago] and I’ve let it percolate. When she said that Jono [Jonathon Hill] would be there playing didgeridoo for the Welcome to Country at the start I was like, I’ve always wanted to do something with saxophone and didgeridoo.
“Jono works at Vincentia High School. He teaches Dhurga language and bush skills and he plays the didgeridoo that is the school bell. Robyn Phillips is playing oboe and [I am] tenor sax. The bagpiper is Steven McKenzie, who helps run the local bagpipe players who play at White Sands all the time. [He’s doing bagpipe airs at 4.45pm as well.]”
JBW: I love a good fanfare. What inspired you?
Megan: “Well, I’m a baroque tragic. Albinoni wrote a lot of concertos for two violins or two oboes. And I love them.
“The main thing was drawing on all the different cultures and building on that whole concept of diverse communities coming together to create something unique… and better than each individual kind of a thing. Tomerong Hall is just such a lovely venue to play in. So I was really glad I could do something meaningful for it.
“For a long time there, I was like, ‘Oh, is it gonna come together?’ Then it started falling in place, and we had a run-through at the hall last week and it sounded exactly like it did in my head, and I was like, okay, now I’m excited.”
