This time last week, the City of Warrnambool was celebrating the announcement of its annual Australia Day award winners and, incredibly, there was not a single woman among the seven recipients*.
The absence of even one woman considered worthy of note for her contribution to the community is even more astonishing given there is a stand-out contender: Vicki Jellie.
If there is anyone in Warrnambool who does not know the name Vicki Jellie, then they have either been out of the city, avoiding all media, or unable to attend any of the dozens of social and sporting events that have raised funds for Vicki’s cause, Peter’s Project.
Vicki, who used to be Vicki Grayson and grew up in the heart of Warrnambool, has worked for more than five years on Peter’s Project, which – for our out-of-town readers – is named in memory of her late husband, Peter, and aims to raise $5 million toward a cancer treatment centre in South-West Victoria.
Since it began in 2009, Peter’s Project has slowly and steadily built its public profile to become a tour de force.
Last year’s federal election included a defining moment, at a local level, when the Coalition pledged $10 million toward building the centre and left the ALP stranded: such is the pulling power of Peter’s Project.
And you need only visit its Facebook page to see the number of events by business, schools, groups, clubs and individuals that are all raising money for Peter’s Project.
When we last spoke to Vicki, she was preparing to take a year’s leave from her paid job so that she could focus on Peter’s Project full-time. She, and her campaign team, are doing a magnificent job and as of December, had raised $4 million of the $5 million needed.
With such a high profile, we thought it would be a fait accompli that Vicki Jellie would be included in the Warrnambool City Council Australia Day Awards, and possibly odds-on favourite for Citizen of the Year. To see her missing altogether was a shock.
We can’t give Vicki an Australia Day award, but she is our Quiet Hero for being one of the most inspiring women in Warrnambool.
Vicki will receive a $20 lunch voucher donated by Lozzar’s Lounge Cafe, Kepler St, Warrnambool. Thankyou to Loretta and Phil for your support. Bluestone editors Carol and Louise will also make a $50 donation to Peter’s Project.
(*Sixteen-year-old Olivia Niddrie was named Young Citizen of the Year. The council has since told Bluestone it received only two nominations for women across all categories.)
Sir Fletcher Jones: a man who helped to put Warrnambool on the map, but whose most visual legacy is being destroyed by neglect.
Analysis – Carol Altmann
In December last year, we first published an opinion piece about the future of the iconic Fletcher Jones Pleasant Hill site in Warrnambool that questions why it is being left to rot as our civic leaders stand by and, it seems, wait for a white knight to show up and make a decision about its future.
At the same time, we also questioned why the Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village – having been invented as a tourist village in the 1970s – continued to be a priority in terms of concern about its future and its funding, despite its flagging popularity.
We suggested closing Flagstaff Hill and creating a combined Warrnambool Art Gallery and Museum (with a strong maritime history presence) at Pleasant Hill.
Whether people agreed with this idea or not, the piece has been our most popular story.
It had more than 1600 page views and almost 500 people shared it on Facebook. We received almost 40 comments on our site and the same amount again on our Facebook page. Almost two months after it was first published, it is still attracting attention.
Fletcher Jones matters to Warrnambool and to Warrnambool people. This message is being sent loud and clear, but I doubt that it is being heard by the people that can actually determine its future.
Will Premier and local Member Denis Napthine step up for Fletcher Jones? Has he even been asked? (Image: www.portnews.com.au)
After writing this piece, I sought out a copy of an extensive review into the Fletcher Jones site that was commissioned by the Warrnambool City Council in 2002: that is 12 years ago.
At that time, the council spent what was no doubt a considerable chunk of your money ($10,000? $15,000?) to hire an international consultancy firm Sinclair, Knight, Metz (SKM) to conduct a fulsome investigation into the Pleasant Hill site. SKM spoke to anyone and everyone. They held focus groups and they set up a steering committee made up of existing and former staff, members of the community and council.
And at the end of all this talking and consulting and investigating, SKM wrote a 100-page reportwith the not very gripping title of “Investigation into future economic opportunities for the Fletcher Jones site” that was presented to the Warrnambool City Council on July 8, 2003.
A copy of this report is now kept under lock and key, literally, at the Warrnambool City Library where a cheerful librarian retrieved it for me and I had the sense that I was the first person to ask for it in a very, very long time.
Will Mayor Michael Neoh or Councillors Rob Askew, Kylie Gaston, Jacinta Ermacora, Peter Sycopoulis, Peter Hulin or Brian Kelson step up? Image: ABC.
The report outlines a number of potential recommendations for the future use of the FJ site – for retail, housing, aged care – and also suggested the council, who owned the site at the time, to sell it to a willing private developer. This did not mean, however, that the council simply walk away.
Instead, SKM made a key recommendation that there be “continuous consultation and communication between the council, developers and the community” about the site’s future.
The council sold the site in 2005.
And it walked away.
It has been more than a decade since this report was commissioned and the council has done nothing concrete to ensure the preservation of this site. There has certainly been no “continuous communication” about its future.
The council’s apathy is shameful.
All of that time, all of that energy and all of that money – and for what?
Pleasant Hill is recognised by Heritage Victoria as having historical, social and aesthetic significance to the state. So perhaps the state should be contributing to its upkeep?
If so, why isn’t the council lobbying Premier Denis Napthine for this to happen? The Premier is our local MP – what better opportunity and access could you ask for? But has anybody from the council even asked for state support? I don’t think so.
What about the The Standard and its editor Steve Kelly? Will the paper step up? (Image: TheCitizen.org.au)
And what is our local daily newspaper, The Warrnambool Standard, doing to take up the cause? From what I can see, nothing.
In the middle of last year, the editor of The Standard, Steve Kelly, told a forum here in Warrnambool that he believed print was “still king” in the regions and that his paper firmly set the agenda for this city and that other media outlets (the ABC, regional TV) followed.
“Do we have an absolute monopoly on setting the agenda in this district? Well, my answer to that would be ‘Yes’. I think the radio station follows our lead. I think to a large extent [the ABC] follows our lead and I think to a large extent [WIN TV] follows our lead,” Mr Kelly is quoted as saying.
Surely it is time, then, for The Standard to take the lead – to set the agenda – on saving Fletcher Jones.
As a new, still growing forum, Bluestone Magazine can only do so much and we are thrilled to have reignited the conversation, but it takes more than conversation: it takes pressure, and it takes action.
Who, I wonder, will step up for Fletcher Jones?
If we care about the Fletcher Jones site, and I believe we do, then we need to make our leaders accountable and ensure it is preserved before all we have are memories, vintage postcards and a dusty report under lock and key to remind us of our failure.
[Since this piece was written, a grassroots supporters group has started to try and save the most important parts of this site. You can join the Save the Silver Ball and Fletcher Jones Gardens group on Facebook here. Read more about the FJ site here.]
Friends in high places: it was a different story of support when Fletcher Jones opened at Pleasant Hill in 1948.
Last Thursday a first priority for book club
Catherine Ryan, left, and Brigid Foard are among the members of The Last Thursday Book Club, in Port Fairy, that provides a place for women to enjoy stimulating conversations about books.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] W [/dropcap]hile there are infinite joys about becoming a mother, the loss of stimulating conversation or intellectual discussion can prove challenging for women who enjoyed such things before becoming a parent.
Brigid Foard, who lives in Port Fairy and teaches English at Emannuel College, Warrnambool, remembers when growing up that her mother, Sylvia Jones, was part of a local book club for about 20 years and how it became a “staple of her life”.
When Brigid had the first of her two daughters, she tried to find a similar club to meet other women who enjoyed reading and talking about books, but without success.
“I remember feeling quite envious of what Mum had, because I was unable to find anything similar,” she said.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]hat changed around September last year when two local women, Lucy Abbott and Meg Higgins, started The Last Thursday Book Club in Port Fairy. The group is aimed at women with or without children who are looking for a place to indulge their love of books.
The group now has about seven members who all meet monthly at a local cafe or restaurant and, over coffee, dessert or a glass of wine, spend a couple of hours dissecting the book that has been chosen for that month.
“I had been reading all these fantastic books, but I didn’t really have anyone to communicate my thoughts or frustrations to about what I was reading, now I have met this great group of like-minded women and we share all of our ideas,” said one member, Kelly Wynne, who has two young children and works part-time as a heritage consultant.
“It has also really broadened the types of books and authors that I now read,” Kelly added.
Catherine Ryan, who has an infant son and also teaches English at Emmanuel College, agreed and said the group gave her an important social outlet that was not work-related, yet stimulating.
“Teaching English is working, whereas this is relaxing…it’s something I do for myself,” she said.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] A [/dropcap]s to how it works, well each member of the club gets to choose a book, which is then either bought, borrowed or shared among the members who have a month to read it.
The books chosen so far have ranged from Tim Winton’s new release, Eyrie, to the somewhat more hefty tome by Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall. Tolstoy’s classic Anna Karenina and the Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, The Signature of all Things, are also on the list.
“We trust each other’s tastes: there hasn’t been a bad choice so far,” laughed Brigid.
And all three women laughed as they described how their monthly Thursday night meetings had become “sacrosanct” and their respective partners – and children – had learned to accommodate the club.
“The regularity of it is really important to me,” said Brigid, “because once you become a mother, it is very easy to be defined only as a mother and to be trapped into talking about teething when, really, you might want to be talking about literature.”
“We are just really fortunate to have something like this in a rural area.”
[box type=”bio”] Bluestone Magazine will check in each month with The Last Thursday Book Club to see what they have been reading…and what they thought of it! [/box]
A handful of help…a sugar glider joey from an earlier rescue by Wildlife Victoria carer Nalini Scarfe.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] T [/dropcap]he recent heatwave from hell may have lifted, but the work never stops for wildlife carers who are at the frontline when it comes to caring for distressed, injured or lost native animals.
One of those who willingly volunteer their time to such a task is Nalini Scarfe, who grew up in Warrnambool, but who now lives in Melbourne where she studied orchestral percussion and now works as a music teacher. (Nalini’s parents are the well-known and prolific authors Allan and Wendy Scarfe, who still live in Warrnambool).
If you thought wildlife rescue was all about cuddling cute creatures and bottle-feeding abandoned babies, the reality is that caring for wild animals takes skill, patience and a commitment to work around the clock.
Ringtail joeys, like this one, were among the most common rescues during Victoria’s recent heat wave, although this little juvenile was from an earlier rescue.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] D [/dropcap]uring the extended heatwave from January 14 to 17, when temperatures in Melbourne topped 44 degrees, the Wildlife Victoria hotline went into overdrive with hundreds of calls from people reporting dehydrated and heat stressed wildlife.
Nalini, as a qualified carer, found herself looking after 14 ringtail possums – four adults and 10 babies – with the juveniles requiring feeding every four hours.
“I haven’t been this sleep deprived since I was a new Mum 18 years ago!” she joked in a Facebook post.
Nalini Scarfe assists a wombat on its way: just one of the many native animal rescues Nalini has performed over the past five years.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] W [/dropcap]hen we contacted Nalini, she also told us about one particular baby brushtail possum that she found on her property during the heatwave…
[quote] I heard this baby joey squawking in the woodpile at home. Sometimes during extreme heat or due to stress, mothers will drop their (suckling) young in order to survive.
I named him Manic as he was a very anxious young fellow. Feeding time involved him throwing his arms and legs around so wildly that more milk ended up being thrown around the room than went into his mouth.
Generally, care in the first couple of days is more difficult as they don’t like the taste of the formula or the feel of the artificial teat.
As soon as the cool change came through on Friday night, I took him back out to the carport hoping that his mum was hiding somewhere inside and had survived the heat: it would have had to have been extreme in the carport roof under the corrugated metal roofing.
Manic only had to call out once and there was a very noisy crashing and banging as Mum came out of the roof cavity.
I climbed up the ladder and held him out to her. She charged at me and I thought she was going to take my head off: she was the biggest brushy I’ve seen. She didn’t attack me in the end as she was just so happy to have her baby back.
She spent the next half and hour just cleaning him ( I guess he stunk of humans) whilst he put his head in her pouch and drunk like there was no tomorrow….
Apparently the chances of reuniting Mum and joey are good up to five days after the separation, so this was a happy ending.” [/quote]
Manic and Mum reunited…with Manic kicking back for a much-needed and long drink.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #DC943C;”] M [/dropcap]anic is just one of many wild animals Nalini has helped over the past five years: the others include heat stressed ducklings, abandoned sugar glider joeys and an echidna hit by a car.
And while Nalini no longer lives in Warrnambool, we think she deserves a coffee next time she is visiting her parents, so Nalini is our second quiet hero for 2014.
[box] The Wildlife Victoria emergency number is 13 000 94535 or its office can be contacted on 03 922 44290 [/box]
[box] Welcome to Treasures: this is a new section where we invite you to tell us about an object or item that you treasure. It might be sentimental, it might be valuable, it might be part of a collection, or it might be something you just can’t live without. If you have a treasure that we can feature here, let us know! Email us at editor@bluestonemagazine.com.au and tell us about it.[/box]
This week, well-known South-West Victorian DI CLANCHY – a former librarian, former Moyne Shire councillor, founder of the ex-Libris book festival in Port Fairy and now a travel consultant – tells us about a treasured item from her travels to China…
[quote]
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] A [/dropcap] treasure from China you ask? That would definitely be a coat made of richly embroidered blue silk, elegant, feminine, and stylish. I bought it at a Friendship Store in Guangzhou in 1990, happily handing over several Foreign Exchange Certificates (FEC) as payment.
The coat is a deep turquoise blue-green in colour, and hangs just below the knee. Panels of ivory-white circle the neck, define the front, and continue around the hem. Wider panels of the same colour trim the sleeves. Black silk piping separates white from blue.
But all over the entire coat is embroidery! Pinks, greens, oranges, reds, blues, yellows, so many colours and shades. Large peonies are surrounded by circlets of narcissus, violets, daisies, roses, irises. Chrysanthemums decorate the wide sleeves.
The coat is wearable art.
I was in Guangzhou in February, 1990 with a group of women, just friends travelling together, nothing organised formally. We stayed at hostels and cheap hotels, travelled by train to Xi’an and back ( 3 nights each way), rode local buses with packs on our backs, ate out in local restaurants, used the local currency as well as FECs and wore out our shoes and our Lonely Planet guides as we walked the streets of Guangzhou and Xi’an. It was so special to have my 13-year-old daughter, Alice, sharing the adventure with me.
Di Clanchy catches up with a local during her trip to China in 1990.
[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A5CECD;”] T [/dropcap]hat was 1990. No Foreign Exchange Certificates in China now, just one currency and the concept of Friendship Stores for foreigners and the elite has also gone.
Cars have mostly replaced bikes on the roads, and you can find your way now more easily with “Pinyin” (our alphabet) signage, and English is spoken more widely. Instead of the severe Mao suits we saw on our early trip, Chinese women of 2014 wear elegant contemporary clothes.
Speaking of fashion: I have this treasured 23 year old coat which I hope will never go out of style. I have worn it to special events, operas and dinners. It graced my wall for a time, until I worried that the colour would fade.
Treasured for its beauty- and the many memories it holds, I hope that the coat will continue to be worn, appreciated, and loved, into the future. It’s a treasure that is up there with my daughter’s letter to the tooth fairy, my grandmother’s christening mug, a lock of my son’s hair, and lots and lots of photos.”
– Di Clanchy
[box type=”bio”] Di Clanchy specialises in affordable women’s travel to China and Vietnam through her business, China Birds. You can visit her website here (and maybe find a treasured coat of your own!)[/box]
Meet some of our other quiet heroes…
