With restrictions continuing to ease the Victorian Goldfields Railway’s historic steam locomotives will return to the track from this Sunday November 29. Bookings are essential due to covid restrictions.
It will be a bumper weekend with the Castlemaine Rotary Truck Show truck convoy and online events also taking place on Sunday and the Newstead Arts Hub reopening Sunday. See the Mail for full details.
Newstead’s Old Railway Station Arts Hub is preparing to host a retrospective exhibition featuring works by the talented botanist and artist John S. Turner.
The arguably under-appreciated works of the late JST – as he signed off – will be on public exhibition every weekend in December from 10am to 4pm.
Castlemaine’s Sue and Peter Turner grew up knowing their father liked to relax by creating art.
But John Stewart Turner never called himself an artist – and only really exhibited once in his life.
Instead he was professor of the School Botany at the University of Melbourne and there he led the life of a successful academic until retiring at 65, later moving to Castlemaine with his wife, Kaye.
Throughout his life, the fact that JST had a significant creative talent was really only shared with others by virtue of the personal cards he bestowed at Christmas time, and the menu card artwork that graced annual dinners of his beloved walking group – Melbourne’s Wallaby Club.
“My brother and I grew up with this man who was a total academic but for relaxation he would do these amazing black and white images,” said Sue.
The significant ability JST had for depicting light, shade and reflection with rhythmic elegance was used to celebrate places he had been and loved, from Yandoit and Port Fairy to Paris. Read more in today’s Mail…
Castlemaine Goldfields Football Club members donned red, black and yellow for their training session last Thursday evening celebration of NAIDOC Week (November 8-15). See the Mail for more…
Castlemaine Health will be part of a unique research project exploring the impacts of COVID-19 on the health and wellbeing of the rural and regional healthcare workforce.
The three-year study, which hopes to recruit 4000 healthcare workers from health services throughout the Loddon Mallee region, aims to develop practical interventions that can improve workers responses to disasters in the future.
Bendigo Health and La Trobe University will lead the study on behalf of the health services in the Loddon Mallee Health Network, St John of God Hospital Bendigo, the five Loddon Mallee Community Health Centres, the Murray Primary Health Network and the University of Copenhagen.
This consortium will jointly conduct the $1m million research project which is funded through state government’s Victorian COVID-19 research fund.
Castlemaine Health Chief Executive Officer Ian Fisher said the project was an important means of understanding how the pandemic has impacted health care workers embedded in close-knit communities.
“Health services in regional and rural communities are generally the largest employer, meaning the impact of COVID-19 on health care workers has a more direct impact on the community at large,” he said.
“The study presents a unique opportunity to examine rural and regional populations, which have historically been underrepresented in this type of research.”
Epidemiologist Associate Professor, Mark McEvoy from La Trobe Rural Health School is the Principal Investigator.
Professor McEvoy said many overseas studies had assessed the impact of COVID-19 on health care workers’ mental health, but little research had been done to understand the “resilience factors” of workers and communities.
“We don’t know the protective and resilience factors. We don’t know why some do really well in a pandemic and some don’t,” he said.
“The study aims to establish this and develop resilience-based interventions for health care workers so they can improve their response to disasters in the future.”
Professor McEvoy said the study will begin recruiting health care workers in November.
A small group of members of the Friends of Red Cross Castlemaine gathered at Run Rabbit Run recently to celebrate the iconic Red Cross ‘Trauma Teddies’ – the bears who care – which are turning 30 on November 23!
Friends of Red Cross Castlemaine spokesperson Sue Tribe said Trauma Teddies are a special non-funded program that relies on the generosity of volunteers.
The local gathering aimed to celebrate the efforts of two of the group’s dedicated local knitters Lorna Anstey and Beryl Mein and Trauma Teddies coordinator Margaret Boyle.
During months of lockdown and isolation the Goldfields Quilters have kept busy toiling away on their beautiful patchwork quilt creations.
Last week the quilters were delighted to finally be able to gift their colourful handmade quilts to two deserving local organisations, including Castlemaine Health’s Ellery House. See the Mail for the full story.
Castlemaine Circus Festival presented their Spring Cabaret for one very special online show only on November 21.
The show was beamed live from the home of Castlemaine Circus Inc at The Goods Shed.
The online cabaret featured talented local circus performer Mason West (pictured) and a host of other Victorian talent. The festival thank everyone who tuned in and look forward to hosting their inaugural festival event at the Western Reserve in 2021.
Castlemaine fifth generation beekeepers Peter and Michelle McDonald could be forgiven for feeling just a little famous whenever they go shopping.
That’s because their faces are now featured statewide on literally hundreds of jars of Capilano honey as part of the new Proudly Local campaign celebrating Aussie beekeepers.
The Capilano Proudly Local range introduces a state-by-state product that features a local beekeeping family, shares a little of their beekeeping story, and promises the honey in each pack is produced solely from beekeepers in that region.
The McDonalds are the first of the Victorian beekeepers to feature with similar labels produced for each of Queensland, NSW-ACT, South Australia and Western Australia.
The campaign aims to help keep the nation’s beekeeping industry strong while calling on consumers to buy local and educate themselves about how their food reaches the table.
Aussie beekeepers are fighting back after a challenging year marked by bushfires, honey shortages and Covid-related border closures.
“We need a new generation of beekeepers to take up this profession to see it thrive into the future,” Peter McDonald said.
“Beekeeping is not just about producing honey. There is a much broader agricultural role as well.
“We pollinate out at Harcourt and do three separate orchards.
“Australia really needs its bees and its beekeepers and the main thing is to support them.”
Peter and Michelle admit they’re finding the experience of featuring on the first of the Victorian Proudly Local labels to be quite a sweet experience.
“It’s exciting especially for Victoria,” Michelle told the Mail this week. Read more in today’s Mail…
The final tally is in and it shows that this year’s Covid-modified virtual version of Run The Maine raised $9000 for Castlemaine Health.
The impacts of Covid on crowd gatherings forced the RTM committee to run the event with the theme of ‘Run Your Own Race’ encouraging runners to run alone at any location and upload their times.
And keen runners responded well with 205 registering for the runs ranging from 5km to 21 km.
“It’s brilliant,” RTM event director Gavin Kraser told the Mail this week following final tally confirmation.
“It’s surpassed my expectations.”
The committee keenly hopes next year’s Covid landscape will permit the event to return to the 2019 format when more than 700 runners participated on courses in and around Castlemaine raising $25,000 for Castlemaine Health.
“We want to build it into a really significant event for Castlemaine and central Victoria,” Mr Krasner said. See the Mail for the full story.
It was a respectful, masked and socially distanced crowd that gathered at Castlemaine’s cenotaph on Wednesday – to Remember.
The threat of Covid might still be lurking, but the assembled crowd was not about to let eleven am on the eleventh day of the eleventh month pass without due notice.
The minute’s silence honouring those who died fighting to protect the nation in WWI, and conflicts since, was observed along with The Last Post, the Australian National Anthem and a brief address by Castlemaine RSL president John Whiddon. See the Mail for the full story.
Community members with metal detectors were urged to turn out last Saturday November 7 in the hunt for a lost wedding ring.
As detailed in the Mail on October 23 local couple Emma and Piers were seeking the community’s help after Piers lost his wedding ring after a night out celebrating their second anniversary at Castlemaine’s Railway Hotel on Friday October 9.
Hearing about their plight local metal detecting enthusiast Bill Sikora came to their aid and organised last Saturday’s ring hunt. Volunteers spent three hours retracing the couple’s steps from the Railway Hotel, through the Camp Reserve and along Forest Street and Bruce Street but unfortunately the ring was not found.
Determined not to give up Emma and Piers have pledged a $150 reward for the ring’s return and Mr Sikora has kindly chipped in a further $150. See the Mail for the full story.
Bush Tucker is on the menu at Castlemaine Health all this week in celebration of NAIDOC Week (November 8-15).
NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia each July to celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. However, this year they were postponed due to Covid.
Castlemaine Health’s Aboriginal Liaison Officer Melinda Harper and Chef at Castlemaine Health’s Quick Fix Café Roland Farve developed the Bush Tucker menu featuring a host of native Australian ingredients.
Ms Harper said Castlemaine Health always acknowledges NAIDOC Week but this year they wanted to try something different.
“Bush tucker ingredients have been used by Aboriginal people for tens of thousands of years. We wanted to bring some of those ingredients and flavours here for our staff and visitors to try,” she said. See the Mail for the full story.
