Under blue skies, the waterfront venue, (which features four unique buildings overlooking the Parramatta River), opened its doors to curious visitors who enjoyed live music and entertainment in the amphitheatre, free rides, food trucks, and fun activities.
To acknowledge the traditional land owners, Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council Chairperson, Yvonne Weldon opened proceedings with a Welcome to Country speech, followed by a cleansing and welcoming ceremony performed Budjeti tribe elder, Uncle Max.
In her welcoming speech, City of Canada Bay Mayor Helen McCaffrey paid tribute to Council’s excellent planning negotiations, successful place management programs, stakeholder engagement and business partnerships for the reshaping of Rhodes.
“Overall planning for an emerging area like this takes time to get good outcomes,” Mayor McCaffrey said.
“Through good planning and negotiations, I think excellent outcomes have been delivered in Rhodes in general. For example, our extensive network of parks, including Mill, Phoenix, Peg Paterson and Berger parks, offer an interesting mix of open spaces for outdoor, recreational enjoyment.
“We’ve worked really hard to create a wonderful sense of place with a lot of our artworks in Rhodes.
“This fantastic, $21 million state-of-the-art collection of buildings (The Connection) has amazing artworks; artwork by Brook Andrews, the incredible dancing ladies ( by Chinese artist Lu Xinjian) in The Learning Space and the digital gallery for photographic artwork,” she said.
City of Canada Bay Libraries’ robotics, coding and 3D printing programs proved popular, with 2000 people taking part in The Learning Space’s workshops.
Magical characters Hoot and Hootabelle from ABC children’s television show attracted a crowd of dancing youngsters while families delighted in the petting zoo, pony rides, dodgem cars, a giant slide, jumping castles in neighbouring Rhodes Foreshore Park.
Guests also enjoyed infectious hip-hop beats of the Hi Tops Brass Band and DJ James Mack, browsed information stalls on Council services such as waste, sustainability and customer service plus discovered what is on offer at The Connection’s Meeting and Event spaces.
For more information about what's on at The Connection, Rhodes, please visit: .