BeeGees rally after new lighting ripped up ahead of official weekend launch
By Kirra Livingstone
THE BeeGees were never going to let the pointless destruction of thousands of dollars in cabling and electrical equipment stop them from their ‘Lights Launch’ party.
More than 30m of electric cables were ripped up and an earthing cable was stolen from the Glass House Mountains Sports Club on June 9 with dim-witted thieves believed to be on the search for copper. Little did they know that there was no copper in the wiring, making their actions not only a waste of everyone’s time, but also risking serious injuries handling live wires.
But it still left the club scrambling to fix the damage ahead of the June 15 launch.
“They cut the cables to one side of our field and we lost the lights on one side,” said lighting project manager, David Perez, who added there was about $5000 in damage.
“Then we realised they had a look through the whole cable and laid it out on the ground, then realised it’s aluminium and that it’s not worth anything.
“For what they took and the effort they went to, it wasn’t worth it, and there were live wires so it is lucky no one was injured.”
Sparkies worked on repairing the damage from Monday to Wednesday.
“I guess if anything good has come from it, word will go out that we don’t have copper wiring, so then hopefully that will be the last time they have a crack at it,” Club president Amanda Milburn said.
“It kind of feels like a personal attack particularly because of what we’ve done to get it complete.
“I’m definitely disappointed that after all the hard work that’s gone into it that it can be destroyed like that.”
The incident is not isolated, with copper thefts occurring regularly around the hinterland, with a similar occurrence happening at the Caloundra sports fields. Amanda said it was a huge effort by the community to support the club.
“We are very thankful for our local electricians that got it all sorted, and the plumber that we had to get in, we used Instyle Electrics and Kyle from Straightforward Plumbing,” she said. “These locals dropped what they had to be doing to help with what we needed to get done and we are very thankful for that. “It shows as a club, it won’t stop us and we just rally together as a small community club and get on with it.”
The lights have been years in the making and went ahead earlier this year thanks to a $390,996 grant from state sport minister Stirling Hinchcliffe and Glass House MP Andrew Powell.
A police report was made the day after the incident occurred, however the club has not heard an update from police yet. David said they had now installed anti-theft locking mechanisms, so no one can enter where the cables are kept.
“It’s painful but for me you know I’ve got a passion, we’ve got so many people invested in the club,” David said. “These community clubs are what is going to stop kids growing up on the street and causing problems so it’s going to take a lot to beat me down.”