One of Victoria’s largest trees, a majestic River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) located near Guildford on the Midland Highway, has been awarded the prestigious title of 2023 Victorian Tree of the Year by the National Trust of Australia (Victoria).
Known affectionately as The Big Tree, the tree is estimated to be more than 530 years old and stands at an impressive 32 meters.
Simon Ambrose, CEO of the National Trust of Australia, said the River Red Gum was a clear winner with more than 40 per cent of all votes cast.“Our winner is a well-respected landmark within the Guildford community, and voters have shown the significant contribution the River Red Gum has made to the local landscape with outstanding size and curious fusion of branches.
“This year the competition featured nine remarkable trees from the National Trust Significant Tree Register that were shortlisted for the coveted award, with three of the finalists hailing from metro Melbourne and six from regional Victoria,” Mr Ambrose said.
The contest aims to raise awareness of the conservation of the state’s natural heritage and highlight the many benefits trees provide to our culture and way of life, and seeing thousands of people get involved has been very exciting for us.
“These trees provide their local communities with serenity and respite and represent the diverse and incredible beauty of Victoria’s natural environment,” said Mr Ambrose.“We encourage Victorians to nominate their favourite tree each year. Keep an eye out for the 2024 competition, and details on how to get involved can be found on our website.”
The National Trust of Australia is the state’s leading advocate for the protection of trees. Since 1982, the Trust has classified over 1,400 trees across Victoria on the National Trust Significant Tree Register.
The Container Deposit Scheme rolled out across Victoria on Wednesday and kicked off to an incredible start in Mount Alexander Shire with Chewton Service Station receiving over 2,300 cans, bottles and cartons in the first day!
The scheme, funded by contributions from the beverage industry, rewards Victorians with a 10-cent refund for every eligible can, carton and bottle they return. Participants can then choose to keep or donate the funds to a community donation partner.
Hundreds of refund points have opened up across Victoria including; SP Machinery in Maldon and the independently, locally-run service station in Chewton.
Chewton Service Station owner Julie Leach said they are expecting more than 1000s containers each day.
“I’m really passionate about the scheme,” Julie said.
“Knowing that rubbish will be sorted and recycled properly is fantastic. Plus, community groups can use the scheme to raise much-needed funds and the people recycling their containers are able to nominate different groups or clubs to help.
“Each week we will nominate a different community group to benefit from the funds from additional containers we recycle. This week Jirrahlinga Dingo Conservation & Wildlife Education Centre has been chosen.”
With more than three billion drink containers used by Victorians every year, most ending up as landfill and litter, the scheme will form an important way to transform the state’s waste and recycling system, diverting 80 per cent of material from landfill by 2030.
So, how do you go about using the scheme?
1. Download the app called ‘CDS Vic North’ and set up an account – this will enable refunds to be transferred within minutes.
2. Gather your aluminum, glass (no wine or spirits), plastic, steel and paper cartons (prima, milk cartons etc) with a 10c mark on the back. Sort them into four groups – plastic bottles, aluminum, glass and cartons. Keep the lids on and don’t crush containers.
3. Head down to the service station in Chewton or SP Machinery in Maldon and hey presto your cans turn into cash!
If any community groups or clubs are interested in taking part visit cdsvic.org.au to register your interest.
The Castlemaine Junior Sports Star of the Week is talented Maldon Football Netball Club netballer, tennis player and keen cricketer Elsa Curran. Elsa recently won the Maryborough Castlemaine District Football Netball League’s 11 & Under Netball Best and Fairest Award!
Name: Elsa Curran
Age: 10
School: Maldon Primary School (Grade 5)
Sport: Netball
How long have you been training/playing? I have trained and played for three seasons with Maldon Football Netball Club for the 11 & Under Netball side (Go Bombers!).
Can you tell us about some of your sporting highlights? Playing with my teammates and getting to make new friends. Winning the league Best and Fairest Award. Going with my team and coaches down to Geelong for an end of season celebration.
Who is an athlete you admire? Liz Watson from the Melbourne Vixens because she’s a great person on and off the court.
What are your sporting goals? I’d like to keep on playing netball as I get older and maybe one day play professionally.
Do you play any other sports? Tennis for Maldon Tennis Club, and cricket for Muckleford.
Any highlights from those? Playing in the Grand Final with my tennis team last year.
Elsa wins $50 cash from our new Sports Star sponsors Dominos and can pick up her certificate and prize money from our office at 13 Hargraves Street, Castlemaine. Do you know a sports star Under 16 deserving of recognition? Nominate them by emailing ldennis@midnews.com.au or calling 5472 1788.
With less than a week to go until the race that stops the nation, locals had the opportunity to get up close and personal with the coveted Lexus Melbourne Cup trophy when it made a special visit to Sandy Creek Clydesdales in Maldon on Wednesday.
As part of the stopover the iconic relic and its keepers were taken for a horse drawn cart ride around the picturesque local stud farm.
The regional visit was the 41st destination in a five-month long global tour that began in June when the cup journeyed across the ocean to Tokyo, Japan.
The prestigious, 18-carat gold cup has made it’s way across seven countries heading to it’s final destination at Flemington Race Course on November 7.
Joe McGrath, the official keeper of the 3.8 kg cup, has travelled the world with a pair of white gloves on hand to handle the $600,000 trophy.
“The Melbourne Cup has been running for 163 years and has become a cultural phenomenon,” Joe said.
“I love seeing the joy on people’s faces when they see the cup.”
Matt and Jamie Thompson, owners of Sandy Creek Clydesdales were excited to have the opportunity to host the cup and welcome visitors to their property where they breed thoroughbred Clydesdales, host clinics and run wedding and carriage hire services.
Jamie said she was shocked but delighted when she received word the cup would visit their family farm.
“I put the application in late one night and then forgot about it,” Jamie said.
“When I heard we’d been accepted, I elbowed Matt awake and said, ‘you’ll never guess what I did!” she laughed.
Maldon Artists Network (MANet) has partnered with EDGE Galleries in Maldon to present the 2023 Maldon Landscape Prize for painting, drawing, and mixed media.
The theme for this year’s prize is ‘Essence of Place’ and a generous prize of $10,000 was up for grabs sponsored by the HMR Foundation.
The theme was inspired by the late landscape artist Philip Hunter.
MANET thank Vera Moller, the late Philip Hunter’s widow and fellow artist, for giving them permission to publish images of Philip Hunter’s work in their promotion of this year’s prize to articulate the ‘Essence of Place.’
The Maldon Landscape Prize encourages artists to personally interpret the landscape. The theme ‘Essence of Place’ invited artists to bring their skills: everything they know, observe, and apprehend, to create work for consideration that may be formal, technically balanced, out of order, maverick, wildly inventive, traditionally understood, arresting, composed, sublime, joyous, anguished, abstract, or a combination of the above.
The judge for this year’s award was highly respected landscape painter Mary Tonkin.
Tonkin works en plein air, a process documented for the first time by the National Gallery of Victoria for their web series inspired by the exhibition She-Oak and Sunlight: Australian Impressionism, 2021. The stereotypical notion of the smock-wearing artist perched imperiously on a hilltop, or ponderously surveying a vista, is anathema to Tonkin’s robust practice.
From the 177 entries, three judges pre-selected 41 works to be judged by Tonkin.
This year’s winner and commended award recipients were announced at the official launch and awards event at the gallery space at 35-37 Main Street, Maldon last Saturday evening.
This year’s major prize was won by local artist Robert Maclaurin for his oil painting ‘Wild Winter Mountain, Leanganook’.
Judge Mary Tonkin selected Maclaurin’s piece, “For it’s sensuality, the sweep of that central horizontal tree like a caress, for the feeling of lichen on boulders that touch and fold into and dance around one another. The dryness of this beautiful local country. And for the sense of disquiet it conveys, the foreboding sense that all is not well in our world.”
Special commended awards were also awarded to Mark Fuller for ‘Leanganook’, Mark Dober for ‘Forest Tangle, Mt Alexander’, and Chris Delpratt for ‘Enriched’.
Local art lovers can catch the Maldon Landscape Prize exhibition at EDGE Gallery from Wednesday – Sunday 11am-3pm until November 11.
The finalists work will also feature in an online exhibition from November 19, 2023 to February 14, 2024 with community members invited to cast their vote in the ‘People’s Choice Award’ of $1000 which will be announced on February 14, 2024.
For further information visit https://www.maldonartistnetwork.org.au/
