A new multi-faith space is now open to the Geelong community to celebrate life, love, reflection and public activities.
Geelong Cemeteries Trust unveiled the new pavilion at the Geelong Memorial Park in Armstrong Creek last Friday.
Chief executive officer Dean Matthews said the pavilion allowed the cemetery to expand and be more accessible to different religions within the community.
“We want to use it as multi-faith and multi-use. So that’s the idea,” he said.
“It’s weather dependent, not weatherproof.
“More summer to spring, potentially or nice autumn days, but you’d have to sort of pick that.”
Mr Matthews said the venue had already received positive feedback from a service that had happened before the pavilion was officially unveiled.
“We’ve had one service here and it was really fantastic feedback,” he said.
“We had about 90 people in here and the feedback from the funeral director and those here was like, ‘oh, wow, what a beautiful way to go’.”
Marketing coordinator Amber Dahlhous said that there had been requests for different types of functions other than funerals.
“A couple of months before that (the first funeral at the pavilion), we had an inquiry about a wedding. As soon as somebody heard that there was a spot down on the water,” she said.
“Construction commenced late 2021 and it took about 10 months all up including landscaping and that was between other jobs across the locations, so that wasn’t working on this just primarily.”
Mr Matthews said anyone was welcome to attend the new facility but that anyone looking to host a wedding or funeral on the site needed to book with the Geelong Cemeteries Trust beforehand.
“We do welcome people to come and have a look and think about utilising a beautiful space close to Geelong,” he said.
