THE last Saturday of October is set to be a special one for residents of Cohuna.
Their CFA will celebrate 100 years of service to the community with a night-time torchlight parade beginning at Cohuna Recreation Reserve before heading across the bridge and through the main street.
“We’re looking forward to it – I don’t think we’ll be able to make the 200-year celebration,” Cohuna CFA captain Matthew Trigg said.
“We’ve invited all the past and current brigades we’ve had relations with.
“All past, present or family members that have been involved over the years, we’re putting out an open invitation to them because it’s just too big to invite individually.”
There are already four brigades booked in to participate in the march, with 60-100 people involved.
The parade is the culmination of a day of celebrations with many more activities to be planned.
“Throughout the day, there’ll be an open day including a simulator and demonstrations – potentially a road rescue – at the moment, where currently awaiting approval for road blockage,” Mr Trigg said.
“We’ve invited Victoria Police, the forestry and Ambulance Victoria, and hopefully, we will have all involved and show how important it is for all emergency services to work and interact together as a team.
“We’ll have a replica truck in comparison to our current trucks and then the latest version to show how far we’ve come, which will be great.”
This is only the beginning for the station, though, with a more intimate occasion planned for the following weekend.
“The next week will be more internal with all current members, family, district management and hopefully chief officer as well for a night with a guest speaker who I can’t disclose yet, but it will be awesome,” Mr Trigg said.
Mr Trigg is extremely proud to be captain of the brigade in their centennial year, but he wanted to highlight the incredible effort of his team.
“I’m very humbled and overwhelmed to be in this position – at times it’s very consuming and others fantastic,” he said.
“Everyone works very professionally, and we set the bar high – they attend training every session.
“But we understand the rigours of daily life, so if we can get five minutes or five hours out of our members were really appreciative – none the less were keeping up our training and maintenance, which means we’re looking after our community 100 per cent.”
