🟠 Ping pong players plead

WHAT’S COMING UP 🎟️

• SATURDAY 20/06/26, 7-11:30 PM | Winter Solstice Viking Feast

• SATURDAY 20/06/26, 7.30PM | The Wolfe Brothers

• SATURDAY 20/06/26, 8-10PM | Bob Sedergreen and Friends

• SUNDAY 21/06/26, 9AM-4PM | Unity In Motion: International Yoga Day

• TUESDAY 23/06/26, 10.30-11.45AM & 1.30-2.45PM | Silvie Paladino

• SATURDAY 27/06/26, 7PM | X

• SATURDAY 27/06/26, 7.30PM | Jenny Talia

• EVERY DAY TO SUNDAY 12/07/26, 10AM-5PM | Play School: Come and Play!

📰 THIS WEEK’S HEADLINES

📍 Rewriting history: Whitehorse Council guts heritage plan after locals descend on chamber

Fifty Whitehorse properties have been removed from a proposed heritage protection overlay after residents pushed councillors to water down the scheme.

Councillors voted unanimously on Monday to cut dozens of homes and precincts originally flagged for protection.

The decision followed a two-hour debate in the council chamber on Monday June 1, where residents argued heritage restrictions could limit property values and plans for redevelopment.

A heritage overlay is a planning control that places extra requirements on changes to a property. Owners may need permits for major works, external alterations and demolition.

A draft Heritage Review supplied to council in June 2024 recommended protections for 93 properties, including 47 individual listings and 46 homes across five groups or “precincts”, including a cluster of post-World War II modernist houses in Forest Hill.

Councillors instead proposed cutting the list to 39 homes - 28 individual properties and 11 homes across two “precincts”, including a collection of eight Swedish prefabricated houses in Box Hill North.

Much of the meeting centred on the overlay, with 19 public speakers addressing councillors.

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny will consider whether the heritage overlay should apply to the 39 proposed properties, before another round of public consultation and a possible independent panel process.

🏓 The 1,250 ping pong players of Whitehorse need a 1,000sqm venue. Will they ever get it?

A shortage of six table tennis tables across a local government area may appear on the surface to be an issue of little import in the greater scheme of things.

But to the 1,250 or so people in Whitehorse who play or are coached, it is an issue that has been left untended for two decades, and one that urgently needs to be resolved.

There are 183 registered players within Whitehorse, but each week about 1,250 people play ping pong competitively or socially, or receive coaching.

They play across various venues. The Eastern Suburbs and Churches Table Tennis Association (ES&CTTA), established in the mid-1940s, hosts about 70 players in four grades and is the main club servicing Whitehorse across three shared-use facilities.

Play and competition are held at Mahoneys Reserve Pavilion Hall in Forest Hill (four tables), Eley Park Community Centre in Blackburn South (three tables) and Sportlink Vermont South (three tables).

Club president Neville Young told the Eastern Melburnian he had been campaigning for an exclusive venue since 2003 to cater for population growth.

“We are in the middle of a table tennis void,” he said. “We do not have a venue available at a suitable time or big enough for a junior competition.”

Young said Whitehorse required a venue exclusively for table tennis. To fit 20 tables, each with a 10x5m play area, would require 1,000 square metres of space. The ceiling would need to be five metres tall to deal with the looping lobs, and the tables would remain permanently folded out to prevent damage and injuries from packing and unpacking.

Whitehorse Council has been developing a new Indoor Sports Plan since August 2024.

A draft plan identified a current shortfall of six tables, which is projected to rise to 10 by 2046.

It outlined three options for table tennis: a new facility at Aqualink Box Hill, purchasing or leasing an industrial site in Burwood with a neighbouring council such as Monash, or repurposing Slater Reserve stadium in Blackburn North with Manningham Council.

Whitehorse Council has been developing a Table Tennis Feasibility Study since late 2024 but has not confirmed when final plans will be released.

🔎 EAST SIDE STORIES

🏉 Boronia’s rugby league club president has been coaching the same kids for a decade, but keeping them in the game is getting harder

Long travel times and competition for sponsors are slowing the growth of the only rugby league club in Melbourne's outer east, but club president Michael Baird says a strong committee and a committed player and support base is keeping them afloat.

The Eastern Raptors Rugby League Club has steadily built its numbers since launching in 2011. The club currently has 160 registered players across 10 teams, ranging from under-6s to seniors and a Masters group.

Baird said retaining players remained a challenge.

“South-east clubs, being more closely aligned with outer-suburban growth corridors, tend to do a little better in attracting and retaining players,” he said.

One of the biggest hurdles is travel, with many away games requiring lengthy trips across Melbourne.

“There are now somewhere in the vicinity of 20 clubs in the Melbourne metro league,” Baird said. “The majority of these clubs are in the north and west of Melbourne.”

Rugby league is considered one of the most physically demanding sports globally.

Baird said this perception attracted some players, but repelled others, particularly as more is known about the risks of concussion.

“The league has the strictest protocols of any sport around concussion and the penalties for head high contact and dangerous contact are also very harsh,” said Baird. “We have very few injuries related to the collision side of the sport.”

Securing sponsorship has also been difficult, as rugby league clubs struggle to compete with AFL and soccer clubs for funding, according to Baird.

“We play in AFL heartland amongst older, more established local clubs with deeper pockets, rusted-on sponsors and much bigger committees than ours,” Baird said.

The Raptors founded their first senior women’s team before it folded during the Covid pandemic. The side has since returned alongside an under-12 girls team, with hopes of adding an under-14 side. Baird described the group as a “gritty lot who leave it all on the field”.

“The women tend to play harder than the men,” said Baird. “Playing with nine on a field that usually supports 13 players leaves a lot of gaps in the line and so there is more effort required to close those gaps or attack them. Given they normally have lower numbers, they also have to spend more time on the field.”

For Baird, the club’s greatest strength is its sense of community. He is now coaching under-15 players he first met in the under 6s.

“They learn things about themselves and each other that they will carry with them for life,” said Baird. “I genuinely believe that they will be better human beings based on the values they learn as a part of playing rugby league.”