The former Uniting Church building and grounds in Main Street, Cundletown are still owned by the Uniting Church but they are now a Community Centre and Garden. 

The building, covered deck and grounds are available for hire by community groups and individuals. Contact Karen Tyler at Manning Uniting Church: phone 6552 3850 during office hours:  Tuesday – Friday from 9.30am – 1.00pm  

The Community Garden is manned on Tuesday and Thursday between 9.00am – 11.00am.  You are welcome to drop in and ask about becoming involved. 

At Theo’s request, there will be no funeral or service, just his final and humble request that a tree be planted at the Cundletown Community Gardens; and that these gardens continue as they had become his passion for so long; and such a wonderful resource for those in need.

MUC church councillor Ross Tingle shares a few of his memories of Theo:

It is with sadness in my being that l remember the life of Theo. The Man, The gardener, The preacher, The kind lover of the earth and the wonder of nature, The friend of the friendless, The weaver and knitter, and his gener osity of possessions, The giver. I loved Theo’s determination to live simply, quietly and gently at times when gently was needed. He had a strong opinion of standing his ground on issues of fairness, and was disgusted and disappointed about issues of injustice. Theo didn't seem to feel the cold too much and wore thongs on his feet all year round, although he came to love wearing a beanie on his head recently, when the temperature was nearer to 10 degrees. Of course it was one he made himself, along with woven rugs and scarfs given for welfare. l loved his preaching, it was straight-forward, simple and to the point, delivered in a slow, and strong manner with his Dutch accent.

June 2023:  Mission Australia brought a small group of young people to the garden for between 1 – 2 hours once a month.    

June 2025:  Thumbs up to John Costa who has done a terrific job in difficult circumstances by cleaning up around the garden beds at our Cundletown Community Garden and planting lots of new seedlings. The food table had to operate from Wesley Mission this week because of the crowds at the Recovery Centre in the MUC auditorium.

UPDATE ON FLOOD RELIEF AT CUNDLETOWN CENTRE

The community flood relief centre in our Cundletown building continues to operate with its team of dedicated volunteers. The photos show some of the stack of donated goods. They have so much that they have signs up saying no more donations except for food.

These photos do not show all of the goods donated, but what was there when the photos were taken. Nor do they show the activity in the kitchen with vegetables being peeled, cooking and washing up being done.

One lady dropped in to donate $500 from herself and her friend. Another has volunteered to pay for the cleaning of the building once the centre closes. The volunteers are cooking every day to take food to people in devastated places like Croki, Moto and Cundletown and to people on farms. These are people who still have no power and often very little else. Some people are only now able to get in to seek material help.

During the past week they were helping 10 adults and 7 children who had spent three days living in their second storey bedrooms because their ground floor was flooded. 

The community is so thankful for the use of the building and a major topic of conversation, apart from the generosity of the locals, has been that Cundletown has nowhere to help people when disasters like the floods occur.

The volunteers there are conscious that they cannot stay indefinitely in our building and are looking to be able to continue cooking from their homes. But there is so much stuff in the church building and still so much cooking that it is impossible to move out too quickly, and there are obvious advantages to having a central place to work from.

The playgroups who are usually there on Thursday and Friday mornings have graciously given up their time there for two weeks already, and MUC will continue to monitor the situation.