Coburg Olympic Pool needs your help this summer

Come to the Olympic Pool Summer season community meeting at

Newlands Community Centre
Murray Road
Tuesday 11 November at 7.30 pm

The Coburg Olympic Pool is opening on December 1st, 2008. There will be a pool party on the 14th of December 2008 to celebrate the pool's re-opening and ride to pool day with free entry on the 18th of January 2009. Friends of Coburg Olympic Pool invite all supporters of the pool who have some time and energy to contribute to to making this summer a great season at the pool. So we're holding a planning session at the Newlands Community Centre on Tuesday, IIth of November at 7.30pm. BYO wine, chocolate and enthusiasm. Tea and coffee facilities are available.


Image from the Coburg Courier, 11th of November, 1961

We are hoping to form some teams to
help with events, eg publicity, screen printing, stall minding etc

• work toward improvements at the pool eg petition for extended hours 
• work on the long term preservation of the pool eg history project, building membership of FCOP etc
• write articles, interview people and take photos for the website 
• It should be heaps of fun. Hope to see you there!

FCOP Committee

the diving board that was

by Janet Grigg
This is a picture of the Coburg Olympic Pool diving board I took last summer. It is suddenly, this week, no longer there. Without any warning, an important piece of local history has been reduced to rubble.



This diving board had been closed since 2003 as the the Moreland Council stated that it did not comply with FINA safety regulations (international governing body for swimming. The rungs on the high board had been removed, presumably so that until the pool closed in 2006, there was no danger of misuse. There has been talk of the diving boards being replaced with something that met current safety standards, but the Friends of Coburg Olympic Pool have believed that the diving boards have significant heritage value. The diving boards could have been left as they were, in their shapely glory, pending a heritage survey, and the black diving pool fence extended to allow for another, useable diving platform to be installed at the same time. It didn't have to be an either/or proposition.

Now we will no longer see the glint of steel amongst the trees on a hot day. Even if the towers were to be reconstructed in a similar style, something of their essence, what made them unique in the first place will still be lost forever.

More pictures of the diving board here. If anyone has any pictures of the diving board (old or recent), we'd love to take a copy and record this part of the pool's history for the future. Please email me if you can help out in this way. 

It's still going to be great at the pool this summer, and we're going to focus on the positives, but as I said before it didn't have to be this way.

Spring at the Pool

by Janet Grigg
Last Saturday, the sun was shining as I drove past the Coburg Olympic Pool with my daughter and she asked can we go swim in the pool? I've talked to her about why mummy goes to meetings, that we've been working to get the pool open. For the children, she says, as three year olds do.



Anyway, it looks as though the pool is on track to be open for the 2008 summer season. It even says so on the Moreland council website. Of course, I won't feel that it's truly a done deal until we're celebrating the first day of the season by swimming laps, hanging out and paddling with our babes in sparkling fresh water on December 1, but it's good to know we've come this far. That works are in progress.

As the first day of the season, December the 1st, will be a Monday, there will be an official opening celebration soon after. We're also planning events such as a ride to pool day and maybe something fun at night when the weather really heats up. To be sure that you hear about any upcoming activities at the Coburg Olympic Pool, you can subscribe to this website either by email or in a reader and be notified of any updates automatically (the buttons are on the left). Let your friends know too, it's going to be a great summer down at the pool, and the more the merrier. See you in the lap lane!

Pool Together - wasn't it fantastic!

Last Sunday about 520 locals turned up on a frosty afternoon to pool together and celebrate that funds have been included the Moreland council's draft budget to re-open our favourite outdoor pool in Coburg for the next swimming season. The Newlands Neighbourhood House was packed to the rafters with good humoured, happy people. Kids roamed between the sandpit, inside where the music was and outside watching Sammy Star.





The speeches were good too - in particular it was really interesting hearing Frank Cox's view of life in the Newlands area. The music rocked, the sausages sizzled and the cake stall was eaten bare. In the end, we raised over $1300!! This money has been banked and will be used to fund community events at the pool or go towards the purchase of something that the pool can use.





A big thank-you goes out to everyone that helped out with the day and made it the enormous success that it was.

More photos here. See you all at the pool!