Westpac Rescue Helicopter Service crewman Michael (Mick) Kerry has dangled from a helicopter near cliff faces to rescue people in trouble. He’s winched injured firefighters to safety in the recent bushfires - and been out on night missions, wearing infrared goggles to help save lives. It’s a job he loves, and he’s been doing it for most of his life.Mick is one of the helicopter service’s longest serving crewmen and he tells The Lismore App about his experiences with this invaluable service that has touched the lives of so many. “I remember the first rescue when I was on my own in the aircraft,” he said. “It was in the late 1980s and a spear fisherman at Broken Head was hit by a large wave on isolated rocks and had a spear lodged in his thigh. “In those days, we didn’t have a winch in the helicopter, and I had to be lowered down onto the rocks to help old mate get stabilised and lift him on to a board. Another lifesaver paddled out onto the rocks and the two of us got him to the beach to wait for an ambulance.“As a young person, it was exciting for me.”BeginningsMick was 18 when he became a volunteer crew member of the Lismore-based Rescue Helicopter Service. He’d been a volunteer surf lifesaver and professional lifeguard before he found his way in the service in 1985.It was the early days - the days before there was enough funding to have pilots, paramedics and rescue crew on duty 24/7 – that wouldn’t happen until 1991. In fact, Mick said one time, the crew had to hide the helicopter on someone’s farm to stop to the creditors coming to get it, because the service couldn’t afford to pay the monthly lease fee.“The early days were tough, at times it looked like service wouldn’t survive until community fundraising committees and sponsors like 2LM, Casino Meatworks and Westpac came on board,” Mick said. “We’ve grown steadily, but we are still looking for as much sponsorship as we can get.”SkillsMick’s background as a lifesaver made him a good candidate for being a crewman for the helicopter service. As well knowing how to rescue people in the water, his job is to aid the pilot in getting to and from a rescue operation.  He spent seven years as a volunteer before becoming a paid rescue crewman – over time, growing his skill set and learning to operate the rescue winch from the helicopter, then co-pilot, using the radio and navigation systems.“The auxiliary skills are so important to learn, so we can get the paramedics to and from an event in an efficient, safe manner,” he said.“We do a lot of training and work closely with the medical team so we can be confident in winching paramedics and lowering them into trees and bush terrain, or off cliff faces - to help people who’ve gotten stuck in bad areas.”Crewman Michael Kerry in a training session at cliffs near Boulder Beach being lifted with a patient' to safety.Dangerous jobMick said when it comes to doing a potentially dangerous job like this, it’s not because he’s brave.“I’m just very conscious of managing risk – I’m looking for the safest outcome for everyone,” he said.“If the weather conditions are maybe too risky, what are the options? “A couple of nights ago in torrential rain and with low clouds on the hills, we had a call out. In those low visibility conditions, it can be too hard to find someone – it depends on the location. If it’s someone in a farmhouse, we might not be able to find it - and our medical team might either try by boat, or wait until morning.Bushfires“In the bushfires last year, we were working in smoky conditions to get to injured firefighters and often needed approach by going around the back of the fires.“One firefighter at Rappville burned his arms and we had to move him 3km to another less risky location so he could be picked up.”With the bushfires and flooding, and the ability of the aircraft to travel further afield to Tenterfield, Armidale and Coffs Harbour, Mick said the service was busier than ever. “January is typically our busiest month,” he said. “We had 48 missions – our monthly average is 36. In 2019, we did 478 flights – which is higher than in 2018. “The December to January time is busy because people are holidaying and the population in the north east swells.Accidents“Unfortunately, we get called out to accidents on the highway, and we are seeing an increase in jobs on the beach. We had three winches from surf beaches in January and one was a motorbiker who was doing 100km on the beach, hit a creek and cartwheeled over the handlebars.”Being the first to respond to an accident scene can be traumatic, and Mick said the crew regularly debriefs and has counselling.“We have auxiliary personal we call on in nasty situations to make sure we are also mentally well,” he said. “We have a great team and we all look after each other.”“My wife is there for me too. I can come home after a busy day and debrief and talk about the highs and lows. “She’s been with me through the early days when I used to do a 48 hour continuous roster. That was hard for her, bringing up the kids when I wasn’t there.”These days, Mick works four days on and four days off in 12 hour shifts, from 7am-7pm for two days, then two night shifts.Mick remembers transporting his own brother once.“He suffered a cerebral bleed,” Mick said. “We are so grateful for what the service provided to him.Community fundraising “We are a small community here, and everyone has a link to the helicopter service - and it gives us an ownership of it.“Many people know someone who has been helped by it – and that’s why the community reaches out to help us. “The Lions Clubs and Rotary have been fundraising for us for over 30 years, as well as small community groups and businesses.”Mick said the fundraising efforts, as well as the ongoing sponsorship was essential to keep the service running. There’s five paramedics, admin staff, engineers, pilots and crewmen, as well as 10 shift working doctors to keep on the books.Running costs “Anything to do with aviation is so expensive and when you tie medicine in, the costs are mind blowing,” he said. “A flight helmet costs nearly $5,000 and needs to be customised for each crew member. There are eight of us – pilots and aircrew – and the cost grows when you include the money needed for uniforms and harnesses.“Maintaining the aircraft is the most expensive cost – just one of the of the five main rotor blades costs $260,000. It’s outrageous, but when you relate that to the number of patients we help, it’s a small price to pay and you can’t put a price on that.”Mick said in NSW, there are 10 rescue aircraft operating, between bases in Lismore, Newcastle, Tamworth and South Sydney.“In our northern region, prior to 1981 when the rescue service started up here, if there was an accident, the ambulance service would respond as quickly as they were able,” he said.“With road conditions, it could take three hours to a Brisbane hospital from Lismore, but now, we can transport a patient with a serious medical condition to the Gold Coast by helicopter in 50 minutes. “The service really benefits smaller rural hospitals like Bonalbo, Casino and Urbenville – which don’t have the resources Lismore does. “We can bring in skilled doctors or ultrasound equipment of the same quality as at Lismore Base, so the smaller villages can get the equivalent care as the trauma units in the bigger hospitals.”Training Keeping the service running also requires ongoing training for the crew.  “As we upgrade the aircraft, we need to train on a flight simulator in Sydney so we can run through any emergencies that could happen in the aircraft,” he said. “It’s something you can’t do in the helicopter because it’s so expensive to run.“The other training we run is aircraft water rescues, where we train in how to transfer patients on and off boats – winching them in and out of water.“We also practice night rescues, locating people lost in the bush after dark and wearing night vision goggles.”Mick said that sometimes, people reach out to the service and sometimes, the people they have helped come back to the base to meet the crew who rescued them.“It gives you a warm feeling to meet them and they are so thankful and grateful,” he said.“We don’t always hear end result of our rescues, sometimes it’s just transporting them from the hospital. So, to hear their stories in brilliant.”  To find out more about the Westpac Rescue helicopter Service, visit http://www.rescuehelicopter.com.au

In 1984, when AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was still a scary, unknown disease associated with the Grim Reaper ads on TV, Lismore author and poet Peter Mitchell was diagnosed with HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus).In those dark ages of understanding HIV and AIDS, Peter began his journey of living with the disease - and the stigma that went with it. It was a journey that took him through years of health treatments, which he explored through writing volumes of poetry.Last year, his second collection of poetry, Conspiracy of Skin, was awarded a Highly Commended in the prestigious national literary award – the Wesley Michel Wright Prize 2019 for poetry. Fear of recriminations for not only being gay, but being HIV positive, caused Peter to stay under the radar in his local community for a long time. But today, as he gains recognition for his writing, he is more vocal and open about his experiences. He shares with The Lismore App his story of being a sexually active gay man who has skirted death - and survived – and looks deep within himself to portray his journey in lyric poetry. Read some of Peter's poems from Conspiracy of Skin: Local poet Peter Mitchell wins national literary prize“I’m gay, I’m a poof,” Peter said. “I knew from a young age I liked men – since I was about four or five years old.“I suspect I was born gay. My father was a closeted gay man and my brother was gay, but he was more bisexual than me.“One of my sisters had lesbian experiences in the 1970s. The same sex thread was in my family.Gay male romance“I’ve never had a love of my life - not to this day. Every so often I feel a sense of loss I never had that.“I’ve had a vast range of experiences. I had an affair with a Catholic priest once and I’ve enjoyed polyamory and had multiple partners.“Over time, I had different relationships with men. When I lived in Sydney, I had a five year relationship and lived together with a Mauritian Australian man who spoke French. “I also shared a house with two gay guys in Newtown. One was a part-time lover, who wanted to move, so in 1994, I thought I’d come up to Lismore and give it a go for 12 months – and I’m still here.“It’s the longest I’ve been in one place. I’d visited for a New Year’s Eve Tropical Fruits party the year before and had friends who lived here.“I love the beautiful, wild countryside and the counter-culture hippy movement here. It reminds me of rural Maitland, where I grew up.”HIV“In April 1984, I got tested for Sexually Transmitted Infections and that’s how I found out I had seroconverted,” Peter said.In immunology, seroconversion is the time period during which an antibody develops and becomes detectable in the blood.“In the first year or two, I felt a mix of emotions – fear, determination, denial - all at the same time - together and separate,” he said.“It was fear of not knowing if it was HIV or not – we didn’t know much about it back then. At the time, the consensus was that people died after two years.“From the beginning, I was determined it wouldn’t kill me and I wouldn’t die from it. I was influenced by alternative therapies and naturopathy, so I would construct mantras ‘I am well, all will be well’. “Before the HIV infection is detectable, many people have a flu that is a sign the body is going through the conversion. It’s a few days of fevers, sweating and colourful dreams.“In 1985, it was obvious I had HIV. These days, medical technology has improved radically and you can be asymptomatic for years, with no development of the illnesses that encompass AIDS.“AIDS is a syndrome that can develop after you contract HIV – it’s a combination of illnesses at the same time.“In 1991, I spent a year seriously sick, almost dying with gut disease, infected salivary glands, shingles and tumours and I was admitted to St Vincent’s Darlinghurst AIDS ward.“I couldn’t eat and my weight went from 80 to 59.6 kilograms - I thought I might die and so did my friends. I was struggling with varying emotions.“In 1992, I had non-hodgkins lymphoma and went through four cycles of chemotherapy and lost my hair. In 1997, I had lymphoma again – it’s normal to see cancer induced by having HIV.The turnaround“In 1996, I started taking retrovirals to improve my immune system and I’ve been on them the past 23 years. “From the beginning my T cell count slowly improved. Now I’m undetectable and I’m a picture of health.“These days, I use sport as a medical therapy. I knew physical exercise was beneficial for emotions and health.“At 40 years old, I started football training and played soccer with the Nimbin team.“I also go to the gym three times as week and do lots of walking and gardening.“Sometimes, I feel like I’m a tribe of one – at 63, I’m fitter than most men and women my age.”Writing Peter worked as a journalist and creative writer in the late 1980s after finishing a Communications degree at Sydney University.“I wrote articles for the Sydney Star Observer and Australian Book Review, but I gave it up in 1995 before coming to the Northern Rivers,” he said.“In Lismore, I was trying to write short stories related to living with HIV.“I started writing my memoirs and wrote to St Vincent’s to get my medical records - but they had destroyed them. Eventually I got them from a clinic I’d been to.“That’s when I realised my memories of those years as I was writing them were false. “So, I rewrote a chapter or two – and tried to make my medical consultations an interesting thing to read – that was hard – they were always testing for the same thing - blood tests, checking the groin and under arms.“Writing memoir is like writing a novel. I wanted to give the reader an understanding of a particular experience, as opposed to the truth.“I tried several times to finish my memoirs and tried to write three novels, but failed.“I thought I couldn’t write a book, so I wrote short stories and academic writing instead. Then I started writing poetry in 1997.“My memoirs changed to an experimental mosaic combination of poetry, letters, quotes and journal entries.Fellowship“In 2013, I applied for a Writer’s Centre three week fellowship to write a HIV based collection of poetry and I got it. “Then the Australia Council awarded me a writer’s grant of $10,000 for a year. So, every day, I started writing and forced myself to write conventional long form memoirs and redrafted my medical records to create dramatic scenes. “My mentor encouraged me to abandon the mosaic form and looking back, it was a great thing“After five and a half years, I finished the manuscript. “To be an effective writer, I needed to let go of my inhibition, the cringes over family disputes - and portray my emotions. I let go of avoiding the real nasty stuff. I am a flawed character and needed to show a holistic picture of who I am.  “That’s’ the hard part of being a writer – we all do shitty things to other people. We all have self-delusion about ourselves.“Mine is I’m a wonderful person. I’m also really hard to be with. That’s ok.Repercussions“I still experience the repercussions of being public about being gay and living with HIV. But it’s out there now and it doesn’t matter. “I still feel I have to be guarded about it - especially locally – in case I am physically targeted – we still need to protect ourselves.Wesley Michel Wright Prize 2019“Last year my second collection of poetry, Conspiracy of Skin was given a Highly Commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize competition at Melbourne Writer’s Festival.“I needed to have the courage to promote myself and my writing and had media in Byron media, but I was afraid to do it locally here. “When no one came up and said anything to me in Byron, I though maybe I can do the same here in Lismore – but it’s taken a long time for me to get to that point.“It’s important for me to get recognition so the issues I am talking about can get out there. “It can be discouraging to be a writer and hard to be a poet. You can self publish your own book, but you need to be able to sell copies. “Poetry is harder to sell than a novel, and I’m still trying to get a publishers to take on my memoirs. The future “I have enough poems now for a full collection of poetry and I’m organising two or three collections now.“My energy levels are being taxed all the time, but if I can get another 15 to 30 years, I’ll have time my fulfill all my book ideas.“Right now, I pay the bills by reviewing books, but I have determination and resilience and I’m going to keep writing.” To find out more about Peter, visit http://www.peter-mitchell.com.au/

Big Rob. He’s controversial and polarising. He calls himself a free spirit and likes to bend the rules. You might know him from the days of Big Rob’s kebab shop on Keen Street, or know him as a social media agitator with a bee in his bonnet about Lismore City Council. He’s got numerous law degrees and intends to run for local council (again) in this year’s election. So, what is he really about? Why does he block so many people from his social media groups? Who is the man under the hair that people love to hate? Big Rob (yes – that is his legal name) had a chat with The Lismore App and revealed a bit more about himself.You can call him ‘Big Rob’, ‘Big’ or ‘Mr Rob’. He changed his name in 2016 because, when he ran for Lismore Council that year, he was told he couldn’t put his nickname on the ballot paper. “I had a business called Big Rob’s and everyone knew me as that,” he said. “Few people knew my original name and they would have looked at the ballot paper and thought ‘who’s that?’“I spent $700 on that campaign and wanted to test the waters. Everyone was scared of me and stole my campaign posters and I still finished up 13 out of 50 candidates with 666 votes - the devils’ number. I joke around I’m the devil, antichrist, and anti-left. “I’m running under the line this year, not on a ticket, but I will run again in 2024 and spend some money and get on council. “I’m not running on a ticket because I’m more powerful not being on council, where I would be restricted by the rules of council and have to comply with the code of conduct and legislation. “Council is feeling it right now - I’m hammering the general manger and other councillors because of what they are doing with the rates. I started lobbying because I was bombarded with requests to help with this Special Rates Variation. “Everyone here pays rates indirectly even if they don’t own a property. You pay it in the coffee shop because the rates are priced into the cost of your coffee.“I’ve finished two law degrees, I’m about to finish my third and I’m going to do a fourth. I understand local government well. Council has made some bad decisions. We need to get back the basics - roads, rates and rubbish, then you can spend money on art galleries and sports. “Council spent too much building GSAC and now it runs at a loss of over a million dollars a year. “People misunderstand me and think I’m against art, but we need to think about being able to afford the ongoing costs. I had my own art gallery for a while – Crux gallery on Woodlark Street where I wanted to focus on Indigenous art.”BeginningsBig Rob was born and grew up in the eastern suburbs of Sydney. He has Lebanese and French heritage and he’s proud of it. “I hate racism and discrimination and my family were very welcoming – everyone could sit with us at the dinner table, it didn’t matter what colour your skin was.“I was good at school, but I didn’t like the academic structure – I think I’ve got something undiagnosed. I don’t like being told what to do, micromanaged.“It broke my parents’ heart when I didn’t go to uni and get a law degree straight away.“When my mother was dying of cancer, I promised her I would go back and finish my law degree.”Big Rob’s interest in going back to uni was sparked when in 2016, when he was arrested for a “beat up in the sushi place in Lismore Central” which he said was caused by one his “stalkers” who wanted to harass him.“The police came looking for me saying someone said they were intimidated by me, and I live streamed the arrest, and I got arrested,” he said.“I was in the cells and I was so angry that it motivated me to enrol in SCU the next day to get my law degree.”His ongoing reporting and sharing of crime videos and police arrests got him in more trouble with the police and the law over time. He also had Apprehended Violence Order breaches out against him, which caused ongoing police problems for him.Lismore and businessBig Rob had numerous businesses in Sydney before he came to Lismore in 2008. First, he worked in security and owned properties, before he opened Big Rob’s kebab shop on Keen Street in 2009 – which he lost it in the 2017 flood. The late nights running the kebab shop meant he saw a lot of violence and he was arrested “in the fourth week of operation” when he went to police to report a pepper spray incident in his shop. “I was arrested and charged with multiple offences,” he said. “They were trying to shut me up because the coppers had the shits with me for my media.”After 12 years of being here, he said he has lots of “stalkers” who want to undermine him, but that he loves Lismore and is staying put because he’s “changing the status quo”.“In 2017, I was studying law and when I lost the shop in the flood I didn't have enough money and I couldn't get any grant money to reopen it again - and thought I’d focus on law,” he said.Now, in 2020, he has a Bachelor’s degree in law, as well as a Master of Legal Practice, he's almost finished a Master of Laws (Business Law) and he’s about to do a Graduate Certificate in Emerging Technologies and Law.“I want to build an app to bring down the price for accessing justice and provide a service to people who can’t afford legal representation,” he said.“If people need help, they can call me 24 hours a day. I’d also like go into the outback and give free advice to Aboriginal people who need representation on the travelling court circuit. “I’m more than the kebab guy – I’ve always had a desire to help people – I was a member of the SES member and a St John’s Ambulance member and I used to do security work.“I’ve seen some pretty horrible things – I’ve caught criminals breaking into places and pulled a dead kid out of a car and tried to resus him.“I’ve always tried to help, not hurt, but I’ll always defend myself and a lot of people in this town think that’s me being an arsehole, but they only see the defence - they don’t see what I’m defending against - and I don’t explain myself too."Boarding housesDespite his desire to provide legal services for people, he said he can’t pass the legal bar because he has so many people who will do anything they can to cause problems for him.Now, to make money, he manages 58 boarding style rooms for people “in the lowest socio-economic groups”, including Montrose House and Dixon House. “I do that job because I can’t get a job anywhere else in Lismore,” he said.“It’s the hardest job in the world and I’m always questioned about why I kick people out.“I kicked three people out last week. People complain, but they don’t know that it’s because someone pulled a knife on me, or kicked the door off the hinges.“If I have one bad apple in 33 on ice, they share their bad habits with the others.”Radio and mediaPerhaps a bit like the John Laws of Lismore, Big Rob loves a bit of controversy – and people want to hear it. He likes to stay up late and catches what’s going on.“Everyone thinks I’m nosy, but I get most of my information because someone sends it to me,” he said. “No one can beat me because I write it when it happens.”He used to do a ‘Big Rob’s Rant’ radio show on River FM until he was “kicked off by the lefties”. He said his controversial sharing of information made people discriminate against him.He was then asked to do a crime show on Richmond Valley radio, which developed a massive audience and became the number one show, until again, he was kicked off when people complained about him for his news coverage. So why did people want to listen to what he had to say?“Because my shit is interesting and it’s real,” he said. “You know I’m going to tell the truth and I don’t care. If there’s a brawl, I’ll tell you it’s a brawl, even if others won’t tell you that because the police will get angry. “The ones that hate me monitor closely everything I do to stuff me up - and the police and council watch me. People might say I’m unreasonable if they don’t like me, but if you listen to what I’m saying and doing, I’m not unreasonable. And when I get things fixed, people will say ‘Big Rob was right’.“When the lock out laws in clubs were brought in, I said SCU would lose students and we would lose clubs because people would go elsewhere on a Saturday night – now we have one club in Lismore. The clubs were harassed by the licencing sergeant, but they never targetted Mary Gilhooley’s.”Politics and social media As a child, he saw his dad fight for the rights of workers as a union delegate. So, later, he joined the Labor party, but said he left when he realised the “unions controlled them”.“The organisers at the top got all the money, while the workers didn’t get it,” he said.He said he wasn’t inspired to be actively political until he came to Lismore and that it was the “lack of professionalism” he found here that activated him.“I would go to council meetings as a business person and a home owner and I sat at the media table and wearing my different hats,” he said. “They took away the media table because I sat at it.“I had four senior business people approach me and ask me to get the left media to the right a bit. “I believe social media is the quickest way to get information out there – a good video will go viral quickly.”FacebookBig Rob set up a number of Facebook group sites. Last week, his site North Coast Crime had 40,000 likes, 1,7 million video views and an engagement of 1.4 million. “And no sponsors have approached me to take advantage of the massive traffic because people don’t want to be associated with me because this town is so full of hatred and fear,” he said. “If I made money from it, I would give that money to cancer research.“Police don’t want me knowing what the news is because I used to live stream things and The Northern Star didn’t like it because I did it first. I upset people and I’ve had no positive news coverage about me since. “People who hate me come up and insult me on the street and I brush them off. If you ask them why, they’ll say something like ‘he blocked me Facebook’.“I block people on Facebook now because it’s fun. I’ve been told to make mugs saying ‘I’ve been banned on Facebook by Big Rob’ with a VIP edition for those who have been unblocked.“Initially I started blocking people because of rudeness.”Once, just for fun, because he was bored, he blocked everyone whose name began with the letter A. His blocked list is extremely long. I don’t hate Lismore“I don’t hate Lismore, the people, the police or the council,” he said. “I hate seeing poorly used resources," he said.“I see the worst of the worst every day in my work. But I also see how beautiful this area is. “I love Lismore and the river and I would love to activate the rivers and get people to the waterfalls.“But the way they do it is weird, they put their arse to the river, the river tracks are closed off in places and you can’t go for a walk at night without fear of violence.“I see myself as an agitator and I fight for the worker but I also believe businesses should be allowed to operate so they can be successful and hire workers.“If you want to build something, but you have to knock down a tree, work around it and adjust. Maybe move the tree and plant ten more over there, there needs to be a balance.“I’m not left, I’m not right, I just think what’s right is right and workers are important and getting an area successful, safe, clean and well managed is what I want to see.“We’ve got enough money coming in – we just need to use it better.”

Robbie Graham AFSM joined the Goolmangar Brigade in the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) in 1969 - when he was 21 - after lighting a fire that “got away from him”. He still lives in Goolmangar today and after more than 50 years of service, he has been awarded an Australian Fire Service Medal. It’s a meritorious award given for outstanding service as part of the national Australia Day 2020 Honours awards. Robert shares with The Lismore App his story of helping communities through the years, fighting fires and the changing times.When I lit a fire that got away from me in 1969, all the neighbours came to help and we contained it quick. But I wanted to also be there to help the neighbours, so I joined the RFS.I had a lot of enthusiasm then. Being in the RFS is about dedication. You drop everything else and do what you need to do there. The whole service is rewarding in itself because you always meet so many nice people from different zones and states. I’ve done more travel with the RFS than I have with my wife. The RFS is one big family.I was into dairying and when I would get called out, my wife would have to run the farm.I joined as a volunteer and volunteers don’t get paid, I made the statement that if we got paid I wouldn’t be in it, you join the service for what you can do for the community. Hopefully, the community will also say what can I do for you. If I get bogged - will you be there?Now, I’m a group officer and look after 11 brigades in my group area. In 1970, I became a group captain and didn’t get fully involved in the RFS for a few years because of my involvement in dairying, and I took on roles on cooperatives and boards. As the years went by, I’ve seen some hairy situations, but I have never yet been to a fire I felt threatened or scared of. You just go in there and do what you are trained to do, put it into practice and come home at the end of the day. My biggest fear would be to lose a crew member and I’ve never asked anyone to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself. I can often take a strike team of five trucks out with up to 20 persons. You take them out and you have to bring them home safe and sound, safety is number one priority and the fire comes after that.Changes to regulationsRegulations have really changed in the whole service over the years. 50 years ago, in the old branch, we had the wet bag scenario where all your neighbours came to give you a hand as the years progressed, you need to be accredited to be a firefighter.In the early years John Mowerhead was our fire control officer and all we did for our basic firefighter course was sit in the Lismore City Hall and read through some modules.Today, you need to do a basic firefighter course to get onto a fireground. It’s a basic four day course of theory and practical. You come out with your little badge on your shirt - BFF Basic Fire Fighter and you feel proud as punch, then as time goes on, that becomes insignificant. Then you get to be a village firefighter, to advanced firefighter, to a crew leader, to a group officer. You rip off the old badge and put the next one on, there’s a real thrill to doing that. Today, we have an influx of new members coming on and we are not sure how we are going to handle them We might have to put more courses on than normal. – there’s only two a year now. Some brigades are looking at 60 new members, others 30 odd. Throughout the state there will be thousands that want to get into the system.Early daysIn our brigade, our very first appliance (truck) we had was a trailer. With a pump on the back. I remember the first fire, it was around 7am and the pager went off that there was a house on fire on Keerong Road. I said I would respond and they asked if I wanted any backup, so Fire and Rescue were sent and they got there just ahead of us. We got our pump started but I didn’t really know if it was going to start. I’d only taken over a month before as captain. We plugged into the 5000 gallon concrete tank they had there. The next thing they ran out of water and said they had to go back to fill up. Here we are pumping merrily away and we completed the whole job off. Back then their trucks could only pump out, not in.Our next appliance was an ex-army truck, but it was so slow getting there. As a community we put $500 into the Lismore City Council to buy it.Brigade meetings were held at the Goolmangar Hall until the brigade shed was built in 1984. I was made captain of the brigade in 1983 until the amalgamation with the Coffee Camp Brigade.At the time, with the construction of the station, they supplied us with materials to build the station. They gave us $10,500 and we put it up ourselves.  Then we had no radio communication, it was by carrier pigeon. Then, when we got radios, we thought ‘fabulous’. Then we went to digital radios. Today the system we use gives us pretty good coverage, but we still get black spots and have to try to relay messages – we have fireground radios where we can talk to individual trucks and don’t have to relay back to Casino all the time. Now the system is a GRM a tracking device installed in the trucks, but it’s not switched on yet. When it is, we’ll know where any truck is at any time - which is good because some of these trucks do get lost. They may go up a firetrail, do a 180 and not know where they are. I’ve had times when I’ve thought ‘am I going to get out of here?’. You usually have a scribe with you who uses the ipad to get directions back out.Technology, appliances, equipment and trucks are getting better all the time. Incidents I’ve been to over 200 incidents over the time. We don’t just do fires like bush fires and grass fires. I’ve done 16 house fires in my time in the local area. We do a lot of motor vehicle accidents which is tough if you are the first response. Today, Fire and Rescue and Ambulance usually beat us – their system is faster. Our pager system has a rerouting system through Casino and can give us delays. If my pager goes off and I’m up the paddock it could take me 30 minutes to get to the station. Once we are on scene, we stand Fire and Rescue down. Technically we are fire protection only and sometimes you have to do traffic control – if a truck is parked over the roads we need to look at safety aspects.When you get to go out on section 44’s (State-wide emergency) like recently, it’s a different scenario. I usually a three day deployment and travel on to a new area.Burning controlIn our districts, grass fires are the main fires we put out - the fire starts on roadways from cigarette butts. With open country we can contain them before they get to any bush areas. In the plantation forests further south, fires are often from fuel build up. Years ago, you could go into forests and get firewood. But you can’t now. The regulations say it needs to be left as habitat which I don’t dispute, but after the situation we’ve been through with more than a billion animals dead we need to see changes. With a log build up, you will have fire problems. It only take one person to light a fire and you have a catastrophic incident.Aboriginal people used to cultural burn in times when there was lesser impact. I’m the chairman of the bushfire management committee I requested a few years ago that all 48 local brigades come up with one hazard reduction burn annually – but people didn’t want to give up their weekends to do someone else’s burning. But what happens now, when it all hits the fan? They are out there for weeks. Now, wouldn’t a couple of weekends be better than a few weeks?We have to look at hazard reduction burns internally and externally. A controlled burn is far easier to manage than an out of control burn where the winds change every five minutes.Recent firesThe recent fires are the worst I’ve ever seen and the most devastation there’s ever been. The ferocity and speed of 70 km/hour winds is unstoppable and you think ‘I have to get out of here’. If safety is on the line and we are put in jeopardy, we’ll be told to pull out. When we were up at Rover Park on the last fire, I was in a valley and the wind changed ten times in half an hour and a spotto (spot fire) started. We can get a weather report but when you are there, it changes fast.Over on Long Gully, near Tenterfield, the winds were sucked through the valley. We had 100km/hr plus winds at 2am in the morning.When we are on the fireline, we know when it’s safe to put a backburn in, but we need to get approval to do it. Sometimes it takes hours for the approval to come through and that window is exhausted. Sometimes for safety they tell us to pull out now, but it might now be convenient or easy to do.With fires, you can normally anticipate what’s going to happen and all crew brigade leaders should be able to read that weather. A lot more fires today are being lit by people – we never had that before. This year with the drought, everything was tinder dry. In a normal season, there will be more moisture content. Without the recent rain, we would still have crews from up here going down there.Fires Near MeLast year, the fire season started in February with fires in Tabulam that spread. Then they came up again in August, in the Pretty Gully area. We spent days there - then all these other ones kicked off. Mount Nardi was in November. I was in Woodenbong and I was told to have Monday off and to be in Mount Nardi from Tuesday to Saturday. That fire was only just taken off the Fires Near Me website recently, simply because there were still pocket logs were lying in with wind sparking them up and these were being patrolled by the community.If you take them off the fires near me, once you go again, you have to create another incident in the whole system which is a big issue for fire control. TiredIn fires now, I nominate myself for what duration I’ll spend on the fireground. I could be all day until 10pm at night and it gets tiring.I move around a lot as group officer – so I’m not on any one fire for the whole duration. You are supposed to do three day batches and then stand down, but some people don’t - they think ‘I want to be up there’ and if they are in their little patch, you don’t stop them.Fatigue is a big issue. When you go out there day after day and get out of normal sleep pattern, it takes its toll. We have tried to address these issues in the past on section 44s. That’s why they stipulate you can only do 12 hours on the fireline, but you have two hours travel to the fire line and again to home. Then you are up again early and after three days it hits you. A lot of the other group officers don’t have the situation we have here, when we run properties as well. After four months of fires, we knew we had to start looking at these things. A lot of these fire fighters are workers and need income, they often take off time from work and maybe take annual leave. Disaster responseAfter the recent fires, there’s a lot of devastation throughout the country and communities devastated by fires are now responding to the call - a lot of people are looking after neighbours and people further afield. I see that the national fundraising for the RFS is at about $449 million dollars. Governments are coming on board, but who controls the money and how will it get to its final destination? There’s a lot of questions that need to be answered yet. It’s a lot of money I hope it goes int to right areas and the correct people get it. As brigades, we are limited in how we can spend money wisely and be seen by communities as to where. I’ve been put on notice to think about where we can spend this money the public are donating. Our fire stations and trucks are owned by council, radios are RFS supplied. It will get sticky in dividing up funds.The Tuntable Falls community raised $26,000 that was distributed into a few brigades.About Robert Graham AFSM: During his long service with NSWRFS he has held the positions of Captain, Deputy Captain, Brigade Training Officer, Brigade Callout Officer, Treasurer, Secretary, President, Permit Officer, Deputy Group Captain and Group Captain. He still currently holds the positions of Permit Officer and Group Captain. He is also a member of the District Training Team and was awarded Life Membership of Goolmangar Brigade in 2009. He is also Chair of the Zone's Bush Fire Management Committee and sits on the Zone Liaison Committee. He is the instigator and driving force behind the Zone Exercise, drawing together Brigades from within the Zone and neighbouring Zones to participate in a skill-honing day of exercises. 

Much loved Lismore local and Bundjalung man Albert Digby Moran passed away last week. The internationally celebrated Aboriginal artist grew up in the community on Cabbage Tree Island, south of Ballina and will be sorely missed by the community. This week, The Lismore App pays tribute to his life and work as we re-publish this edited transcript of a talk Digby Moran gave at the Lismore Library on August 3, 2018.I'm Albert. Everyone knew me growing up as Albert. I was born in Ballina Hospital in 1948 and I grew up on Cabbage Tree island. There was no bridge when I was growing up. Just a boat to take us across to the mainland.Probably the best times of my life growing up on the island there as a little kid - free and nothing to worry about. We were always in the river swimming and getting up to mischief, doing stuff.My mother was a Bolt, Edna Bolt and she married my father Edward Moran, from down Kempsey way. My father and grandmother came up from Kempsey in a horse cart and he met my mother at Byron Bay.There were nine of us, four girls and five boys My eldest sister was the first to have a kidney transplant, in Sydney. But it wasn't successful.We were a very close family. We still are. All the rellies still get together and do stuff.Everyone looked after each other on the island. No squabbles, no arguments. Everyone was happy. There was a caretaker on the island who looked after everything, at least in my time.We used to have a lot of fun on the river banks. Doing stuff, mucking around in the mud and swimming. We’d catch prawns with a bit of bait in between your fingers. The prawn used to come and we were pretty quick and cluey, the young fellas, we would just pull them straight out of the water.We used to play rounders in the middle of the paddock and just before dark you'd hear a whistle. Every family on the island had a whistle, and everyone knew their own whistle. Three whistles and you had to be home by the third whistle. Not like today. It was pretty strict when were young. Good times.The school on the island had about 30 kids. The teacher would come up from Ballina. Every morning, the caretaker would pick them up in the launch and take them back every evening.I grew up with boxing gloves on, with a football and a cane knife in my hand.We used to play football at Woodburn when we went to school and travelled to Ballina on the Flemings bus and play in a competition down there.When I left Ballina High School I got out in the cane fields. Everyone worked cutting cane back then. There was none of this bloody machinery. It was all done by hand. I cut a lot of cane. Met a lot of people. I've still got friends from back in those days.My dad was a boxer. He was heavyweight champion of the North Coast and he fought a lot of top boxers from America. He used to come and do all the Shows in Lismore with Big Les. Big Les fought my father in Newcastle Stadium. Big Les was 22 stone. Dad fought him in Newcastle Stadium for the heavyweight title and they fought a draw down there. We always used to box around with the gloves as kids and when I grew up I used to fight a bit of amateur boxing in Ballina and then when the shows would come up I'd fight at the shows up here in Lismore, Mullumbimby, Casino. We were up in Brisbane doing an exhibition up there with Jimmy Sharman one time and Big Les said: “I'm having a break so you can go with Jimmy”, who was going back down to Melbourne. Jimmy Sharman had a big red bus and we done all the shows down to Melbourne. There was an Australian champion down there name of Bindi Jack. He was the bantamweight Australian title holder and wanted me to stay down there and train down there in boxing. And I met a lady friend down there, she was an English girl, but I was young and silly and I couldn't sit still in one place. I had to keep moving and I ended coming back home. And that was it. That was in 1967. And I've never been back. I got in with Doris King and we had three girls and one boy and that was it.When I was in my 40s I stopped doing other silly stuff and started painting. I was a bit of a larrakin growing up. I drank a bit. Alcohol. When you're young, you do a lot of stuff. I had a spiritual awareness when I was about 40 years of age.I come home one night I and was out the back of the house and I was talking in tongues, in language, and I'd never spoken language in my life and something spiritually got into me. After that when I went to the pub and ordered a beer and I got the beer to [just in front of my lips] I couldn't lift that beer any further. I tired to lift it and something would not let me drink it. You might think I'm crazy but I know what happened. I tried a few times.I was in a relationship and you know what you do when a relationship breaks up? That'll fix me. Solve the problem. Same thing again. A lot of people don't believe me. But I know in my own heart what really happened to me.Most of the stuff I paint about is things I see around. I do a lot of stories about fishing and other stuff. I love doing my work.When I was a young fella growing up I used to watch my grandfather, he used to make walking sticks and boomerangs and he'd have the fire going and he'd have about half a dozen hot irons in the fire and he'd pull one out and burn the designs. And that's what he did and I used to be always there with him, watching. It was always in me. Just waiting.I can tell you a lot of things I've seen on that island that people think I'm crazy or mad. But I don't care what they think. I know what I saw and that's it.Some of them come into the paintings. Some of them I just keep to myself.One time when I was a young fella I was walking around and I couldn't find my boys at the top of the island so I went down to the bottom and I came to this big clearing and this figure came straight towards me, all red and brown and hairy with like an ape face. I just kept walking and he kept walking until we were face to face. I looked behind him and there was a female behind him and back further there was a small one, like they were a family. I had a good look. Then I turned around and walked away. And I never spoke about that Yowie until I was 40 years of age, when I started painting.I was mucking around at my mum's place early one morning. And she come in and I started to talk and tell her about these things and she said: “Only special people see those things, and you're special.” That stuck with me.I'd see things out there but I wouldn't talk about that stuff. People would think: “He's losing it this bloke”. I'm glad I left it. People would have been tormenting you, like when you're a kid. Kids torment you. Get in fights and everything.I'll write a book one day, if someone will sit down and listen to me.I see things all around me when I relax and paint. I know I'm watched and looked after. There are people around me every time I paint.How I went to Germany is, I had a friend up in Mullum who was from Germany and a friend of his come over from there, and my friend wanted me to take them around and see some Aboriginal sites and one particular place was a midden at Ballina.I took them there, and my mate’s friend just couldn't get over it - all the shells and oysters. I only take special people in there. We were coming back out and she keeps saying to her husband: “I can see them, they're all over the place!”. She could see the ancestors because she was a spiritual person. And she said when I go back, I'm going to do something special for you, I'm going to do something special.She was an artist herself and she got these exhibitions for me over there.And that's how I went over there. I enjoyed the place and the people. Maria and her family, couldn't wish for better people.They make you feel comfortable - took me all around and showed me their culture, all the old castles. It was good. I enjoyed every moment.I had another friend in Austria, who flew me over there to Austria with some work. I stayed on his property, on a farm outside of Vienna, with all the cows and horses and a big stable. In the early morning, I walked up to the top of the hill and looking down and I couldn't work out what was all this colour, and it was tulips. All different colours. It was beautiful. Looking from up there, looking down.There was stuff there, I wouldn't have thought I'd ever be in places like that, especially as a kid growing up on the island. 

Bill Kiernan OAM has spent his life in the air. The 83 year old is head of operations and flight examiner at Northern Rivers Aero Club (NRAC). He’s seen two wars, set up flying schools, bought planes, received an Order of Australia Medal (OAM), dropped crabs and spotted prawns from the air.When Bill was 15 years old, he joined the Airforce to do radio engineering. On the weekends while training, he secretly started having flying lessons in a Tigermoth.“The first time I flew, one of the propellors came off and we crashed into a chook house,” Bill laughed. “We were sitting in a wreck and I was looking at the instructor sitting in the front seat, with blood on his face and saying ‘I’m alive’, when the farmer came running across the field, upset about who was going to pay for his chook shed.”It didn’t put him off flying.Bill eventually did learn to fly and went on to get his commercial pilot’s licence and his instructor rating.“I was in the Airforce for 11 years and would fix planes involved in World War 2 operations,” he said.“I got some good postings overseas in places like Singapore, the UK, Philippines and Hawaii where I met lots of like-minded people and developed a respect for their cultures.“I enjoyed the Airforce, but the sheltered, military life wasn’t really for me.“I was a smart arse and eventually the Airforce suggested I be a civilian.”Bill Kiernan in the cockpit.Love in the 60sWhen he left the Airforce, he was based in Townsville and started instructing people how to fly in a local club.“Townsville was an awesome place in the 1960’s,” Bill said. “I was a young single bloke and not bad looking and had a way with words and people. I also played Rugby Union and represented Queensland.“It was a great period – things had changed a great deal - women had discovered the pill and would knock us about and use us,” he laughed.It was in Townsville he met his future wife to be. She was an air hostess and they met in a hotel, went on a date – and the rest is history.They married and eventually moved to the Gold Coast, with their Chihuahua Biggles - to be near his wife’s family.CareerAfter a brief involvement with the Vietnam war, Bill's climb up the career ladder took off when the chief instructor in the Townsville aero club was killed in an air crash.“So, I was kicked upstairs into his job and I wasn’t terribly experienced.“Eventually, I formed another flying company – working with business people in the meat and cattle business. “That was when I made my first trips to Japan in a little six seater airplane.“I was ferrying airplanes to the Phillipines and taking casual flying jobs.”He made a habit of forming companies. “I was approached to set up a different style of flying school,” Bill said. “In the US, Cessna pilot centres had been set up and offered a new perspective on the way to teach, that wasn’t military style.“So, I set up a big operation that people said was doomed to fail, but two years later, we sold it for $2.5 million dollars.“We were also doing charter flights and grew the business from having two planes to eight.”Bill's first DC-3 he bought.Crocodiles and fun“When Crocodile Dundee came out, an opportunity to buy a baby DC-3 plane came up.“So, we bought it and bought a property in the Gulf of Carpentaria where we had a dam with a real white crocodile.“We called the business Crocodile Air with the motto, ‘it won’t cost you an arm and a leg’.“We promised the yanks they would see a crocodile or there would be no charge – then we would fly them over the dam.”Next, he bought a Neptune bomber plane for $500 after the US government grounded them all. “It was lots of fun,” Bill said. “We used fly around and did Easter egg drops and crab drops.“There was an annual crab festival and we had cooked mud crabs wrapped in a small parachute and we dropped them into the festival.“Another time we had 2000 Easter eggs and dropped them into the mud flats and watched the kids running round looking for eggs. The person who found the gold egg won a prize.“I remember a time we were chasing crocodiles up and down rivers for fun in a little bubby piper Cherokee - four seater single engine plane.“We had a dinghy in the back seat in case we fell into the water.“We fell once, but we jumped onto the wing and a boat picked us up.”Bill and a friend with one of the Crocodile Air planes.OAM and prawns“I was rung up one day by someone asking me if I’d got the letter about receiving an Order of Australia medal. “I said ‘piss off, you’re yanking my chain’. It was fair dinkum. I said ‘you must be short this year’.“They said it was for service to aviation.“Maybe it was the service I gave to the hosties and overnighters in Townsville,” Bill laughed.“I think it was for when I was spotting prawns from the air in the Gulf of Carpentaria with a WW2 paratrooper.“He had come to me and said, ‘I reckon you’re mad, do you want to come prawn spotting with me?’.“So, we went up and spotted the banana prawns when they boiled up at certain times of the year – then we’d tell the trawlers to come get them.“Then the Civil Aviation Authority got into it and the air there got busy with lots of planes. “Then a big Russian ship came one day and sucked them all up and then the government made the Gulf into Australian waters.”Bill receiving his Order of Australia medal.Northern Rivers Aero ClubBill Kiernan is 83 this year and said he never sees himself retiring.Now the Northern Rivers Aero Club’s head of operations and flight examiner, he’s responsible for ensuring compliance with laws and teaching people to fly. “It’s nice to give back to a profession that has given me so much,” Bill said.Bill was working on the Gold Coast about 12 years ago, when someone rang him and said the Lismore-based club needed a new flight instructor.“I came and looked and thought it didn’t justify a full time role so I work here 3-4 days a week,” he said. He and the club’s other instructors teach people to fly. Bill said flying a plane is not hard, but it takes determination, self discipline and a willingness to watch, listen and follow procedures.So you want to fly?Being a pilot is something Bill said many people falsely revere, thinking pilots are like gods.“People also see learning to fly as something out of their reach – that it’s too expensive - but people don’t think twice about buying a new car,” he laughed. “I’m a cynic, a couple of wars does that to you.“It’s about $10,000 to learn to fly – and it’s not hard to fly an airplane – if it was, I wouldn’t do it. “If you make a mistake, it can be fatal, so when you are in the plane – you are the captain - it’s your responsibility.“Never let your ego take over.“A 14 year old boy came in to see me this morning with his mum. He really wants to learn to fly, he saved $1000 by busking because he is determined.“If you want to fly, come and talk to me and take a discovery flight. “Everyone who wants to fly is different and we tailor the program to their needs - it depends on your goals and why you want to learn. Not rocket science“We have a flight simulator that people start in to get a feel for flying a plane. Then they learn theory and the instructor takes you in a plane. “Learning to fly is like rollerskating – it uses the brain and the senses. We teach you how to use your reflexes - like catching a ball.“I’ve taught kids from PNG and Laos to fly and they learn easily. They watch and listen and can learn the theory afterwards. It’s not rocket science.“These days, everything is automated, so you become an airborne systems operator in a plane. But computer systems can break down and you need to know what to do.“When we teach, we give people a basic grounding and tools to build on.Bill Kiernan, Nathan Parker and Sam Todhunter at NRAC. The young face of flyingNow, at NRAC, Bill works with Nathan Parker.Nathan joined the Australian Defence Force Academy and in his last year, he was in a bus that rolled over. “Nathan lost his left arm and was knocked about,” Bill said. “He wanted to continue flying but the Airforce said he couldn’t and it decimated him.“He came to me and told me his story and I said, ‘pig’s arse – you can fly’ and we went flying. “So, Nathan went on to do his flying exams and got his pilot’s licence and now he’s a senior flying instructor. “Now, he’s going for his dream to get his commercial pilot’s licence.”Bill with Commodore James Coward.Ruled by booksBill has met a few people who haven’t let misfortune stop them from achieving their goals.He remembers when he first started working at NRAC and invited British Commodore James Coward to come and officiate at a charity event for ANZAC Day.Commodore Coward had lost a leg in the Battle of Britain while flying his Spitfire. Under fire from Germans, his weapon jammed and backfired on him, almost severing his foot from his leg.As his plane dived, he bailed out, deployed his parachute and used his helmet’s radio lead to tie a tourniquet around his thigh. He survived and had his left leg amputated.“I had the pleasure of taking him flying,” Bill said. “He aerobatted the plane and told me once he rolled a spitfire from Edinburgh to London.“People told him he couldn’t - but he did.“When I’m taking on a challenge, I look in the rule book for a rule that says you can’t do it. If there’s nothing, then I do it.“Too many people are ruled by books. It stops you thinking for yourself. Then people get bored and do stupid things.”The Great Eastern Fly-inNRAC will be having a stall at the Great Eastern Fly-in at Evans Head Aerodrome this weekend, where you can meet Nathan Parker and learn more about flying.To find out more about the Great Eastern Fly-in, read: Soar up and away at the Great Eastern Fly-in this weekendTo contact NRAC, phone 0266 214 844, or email [email protected] or visit http://www.recreationalpilot.com.au 

University lecturer and musician Marcelle Townsend Cross didn’t find out she was an Aboriginal woman until she was 18 years old. Growing up with her adopted parents, she’d always suspected there was more to her ancestry than she was told.Now, as a university lecturer in Southern Cross University’s School of Arts and Social Sciences, Marcelle is changing the way the education system teaches people to think about Indigenous peoples and culture and says we need to “rehumanise our society”.“I was brought up as a white fella and was ignorant about the real history of Aboriginal people,” Marcelle said. “I knew from my experience at school what white Australians learn from the education system and its racism - and I know about the process of unlearning that. “It’s a really emotional journey – with anger, fear, bitterness and joy.”BeginningsMarcelle was born in Crown Street Hospital in Sydney in 1962. She lived with her mother, father and siblings until her mother left her father when she was eight months old. “She left him in middle of the night and took me only because I was the only child that wasn’t his,” she said. Marcelle lived with her mother until her mother’s alcoholism became a problem and government welfare staff came and took her away.Despite her grandmother’s efforts to keep Marcelle in the family, Marcelle was adopted in February, 1963, when she was 14 months old. Her adoptive parents, Betty and Jack Cross took her to live with them in Newcastle. “It was a closed adoption,” Marcelle said. “Welfare has loosened up now – but the Stolen Generations practices continued until the late ‘60s.“Mum and dad knew I was from and Aboriginal family, but they made the decision to not tell me about it. “I realised I was probably Aboriginal from looking in the mirror as I was growing up. Eventually, I wrote a song about it called ‘Koori in the Mirror’.“I used to ask if I was Aboriginal, and my parents said I was special because I was adopted.”ChildhoodDespite not knowing her roots, Marcelle said she had a happy, safe childhood and loved her mum, step-dad and brothers.“Mum wanted to call me Jennifer, but when she got me, she decided to keep Marcelle, which was fortunate because it helped me later when I went to find my family.”The catalyst for looking for her family came when she was 16 and her dad went missing in a fishing accident at Catherine Hill Bay. “His body was never found – we saw on news footage that a man had gone missing and showed dad’s truck – and mum freaked,” Marcelle said.“It was the first significant death in my life and made me interested in finding out about my natural family.“Mum was racist and felt threatened by it - but she got over it when I wasn’t going to run away with an Aborigine.“I asked mum for my adoption papers, but she refused, and I only found them when she died.“I was adopted through the Catholic adoption agency but couldn’t access the information until I was 18.”ReconnectingWith the help of an adoption reconnecting organisation, Marcelle began searching for her birth family.“I got a call a week later that my birth mother was also looking for me and three weeks later, we met at a mediator’s house,” she said.“It was amazing – I did look like her. It confirmed I was from an Aboriginal family. It made instinctive sense.“People used to comment that I looked like dad - he was Aboriginal too from the Gunnedah Roses mob.”Intergenerational trauma“I met my nan, my uncles, brothers and sisters - It was a difficult trip coming back into a family affected by intergenerational trauma.“I went through the mainstream racist education system in the ‘70s crap and was taught crap about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. “I didn’t know what to expect. “It can be difficult managing relationships in immediate and extended family because of lateral violence, bitterness, conflict and mental health issues.“The next ten years as I got involved in my family, I learned to navigate that stuff – including my crazy sister - then everyone started to die. “Mum had aggressive liver cancer and we went back on country together in Taree for Christmas. “My eldest sister struggled with heroin, then got aggressive kidney cancer and she asked me to care for her two youngest daughters, which I did with my husband Chris.”Marcelle had already married and had three children, but when that relationship ended, her nan’s words ‘watch out who you marry – you are related to everyone in Redfern, Taree and Karua’ had special importance.“So, I played it safe and married the son of boat people from England - Chris Fisher.”Marcelle and Chris.Northern RiversMarcelle came to live in the Northern Rivers in 1986 to study at the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education. “After 11 years of raising kids, I started studying an associate degree in music to get into swing of study,” Marcelle said.“I’d been playing guitar and singing, and I loved music.”Her love affair with music was the also beginning of a beautiful relationship with local musician Chris Fisher.“We met over shitty nappies at a day care centre,” Marcelle said. “Chris had boys and as we changed nappies, we eyed each other off. “He asked me on a play date with the kids, but we were both in relationships at the time. Rockonciliation“Five years later, I was single and working at GNIBI in admin and making music with a band called Rockonciliation. “We sang black fella songs and I was trying to get an understanding of my family. Why are they poor, angry and sick – what’s wrong?“I asked my nan, but she was a closed trap and too traumatised to talk about it.“My cousin Jo told me to do Indigenous studies, so I went to the Southern Cross University Indigenous College.“I learned and then I got pissed off. It helped me to understand why my family was scattered, drunk and blocked up.“It lit a social justice fire in my belly - I was angry and realised I’d been a part of it all. “So, I expressed that through music – and that’s when Chris Fisher asked me to emcee at a community event at Nimbin Rocks.”Love story“Chris showed up as a gorgeous guy on doorstep with a white shirt and flowers.“He realised I was single and we got to know each other. We became a love story and eventually married. “He had two boys, I had three kids and all our kids had been together since preschool. “We moved into Harmony Avenue in Lismore together – but some days it was Discord Close – we had two families and kids and significant other parents – and we all raised them.”When Marcelle’s sister’s two children came to live with them, five children grew to seven. “And after mum died, my little brother came to live with us too,” Marcelle said.Eventually, they would also take on another baby from one of Marcelle’s siblings. Marcelle with Chris Fisher and other musicians performing as Monkey and the Fish.University“In the late 90s Aboriginal employment programs were all the rage,” Marcelle said.“I knew that education is the solution, regardless of the question. “A job came up as an assistant lecturer and I always to be a teacher of adults - I had enough kids at home. “When I got the job, I was given a three-page course outline and told good luck.“I taught a course in Aboriginal history and arts and was teaching when Chris and I married.“We also produced an album of music together as ‘Monkey and the Fish’ and bought a block of land and started to build a house. “That was 15 years ago – and the house is still not finished.”CareerMarcelle’s career took her to work in different universities as she raised a big family and continued playing music with Chris in local venues as Monkey and the Fish. Eventually, when most of the kids had moved out, Marcelle decided to go back to study and do her PhD.“I got a scholarship to do a masters in adult education and Indigenous studies at the University of Technology Sydney in 2009,” Marcelle said.Teaching and PhDOver time, Marcelle’s studies and teaching evolved into critical Indigenous studies, which she describes as a study of the relationship between the coloniser and the colonised. Marcelle took everything she had learned and applied her understanding of teaching and learning strategies to looking at cultural studies in a new way.“My PhD became a reflection of where we’ve been and should be going,” she said. “It’s a critical anti colonial approach to teaching and learning, with a social justice edge.“When we used to learn social profiling of Aboriginal people – it was about learning about the other and their problems, and it lets the rest of Australia off the hook with regards to their responsibility. “It’s still colonialism in action. It’s the same shit that happened to my ancestors and it’s still happening to all of us – and education breaks us free of that.“My PhD was about the experience non-indigenous students had when they studied indigenous studies.“Indigenous studies confronts white people for the first time with stuff that goes to core of who they are as Australians – it’s an emotional roller coaster ride as much as intellectual journey.“Humans who have been fed crap all their lives can now hear a different perspective - and it rocks their world.“So, we need compassion in order to make Indigenous studies more acceptable to all students - and to understand it’s a big upset to their identity.“Any situation where a human is oppressed diminished us all.“Racism and oppression dehumanises the racist and oppressor, as much as it harms the victim - the target.“So, we need to adopt critical cultural safety and interrogate the dominant and mainstream society in which we are all immersed.“We need to self-reflect and examine how our investment in that environment and common knowledge impacts on our interactions and relationships with minoritised others.“For men, it’s how they interact with women with regard to patriachy.“For the Australian born, it’s how they interact with immigrants.Cultural safety“The process of cultural safety is about learning that something that’s ok for one person, might not be ok for another. It requires cultural humility and we are always learning. “As a non-immigrant, I can never be fully aware of what life is like for an asylum seeker or what’s best for them.“What does our treatment asylum seekers say about our humanness?“We need to rehumanise our society because it is moving toward to anti intellectualism and right wing nationalism.“Our Ancestors teach us to care, share and respect – rather than saying racist bastards.“I want all Indigenous studies to go that way. “My next research project will look at what’s being taught across Australia in Indigenous studies.”

Co-founder of Nimbin’s Rainbow Power Company, Dave C, was a trailblazer in the 1980s. He and his business partners followed the sun, wind and water into creating a business that made renewable energy a real option for local people, and grew their business into one that now services the globe.It was April 1985 and Dave C was sitting around at Blue Knob with Peter Van Wyck (aka Peter Pedals) and Jack Von Hest and they all talked about wanting to get off the dole.Peter said he wanted to start an alternative power company and Jack already had a name and logo in mind.Dave thought it was a great idea - and so the Rainbow Power Company was born in Nimbin.“We wanted to benefit the planet at the same time,” Dave said. “Renewable energy ticked all the boxes.“Our primary objective was turning the tide away from environmental destruction and towards environmental harmony.“I’d come from the UK where I’d worked with battery powered forklifts, so I had some experience, but I’d never touched a solar panel until I met Peter Pedals.”With Peter’s knowledge of alternative energy sources, and the trio’s passion for making the planet a better place, the three men pooled their money together and got on with it.“We each had $30 and so with $90, we went into Lismore and bought things we could sell at the markets to make more money,” Dave said.They bought tarps and rope and rechargeable torches and lights and set up at local markets in Nimbin and the Channon.“We made $150 at our first market and went on doing that for a few years, buying more stock and putting the money we made back into making our business,” Dave said.Then they held a town meeting in Nimbin and with the support of others, they went ahead with their plans to build a business focussing on alternative energy sources. “We had the idea to build a manufacturing factory at Tuntable falls, so we set up at Paradise Valley, manufacturing regulators and solar panels.“We made a better version of the rechargeable torch, but we were eventually priced out by Chinese companies.“Eventually, we opened a shop in Nimbin (where the Nimbin apocathary now is) and later we moved into the Trattoria building.”IncorporationThen in 1987, the company incorporated, becoming an unlisted public company.“We bought an off the shelf company, Yorkwind, and started trading as Rainbow Power Company Ltd,” he said. “We eventually built the building we are now in on Alternative Way in Nimbin in 1992 and moved all the workers into one place.“Peter Garrett opened the new shop - I remember picking him up at the airport.“There were eight other solar companies in existence in Australia at the time.“Solar was more expensive back then.“It cost about $10 per watt, now it’s 50 cents a watt - it’s more affordable for everyone now.“We were doing well, then the government pulled the plug on the power assistance scheme grant which have grants to eligible people for solar systems.“Then our takings went down.”Some of the people involved in the early days of the Rainbow Power Company.Alternative PowerDave said about 15 years ago, there was a national drive toward solar.“Things changed and solar set-up prices came down,” he said.“Australia should be a powerhouse when it comes to solar - if we had a solar array 75 miles by 75 miles, we could power the world.“People are becoming more conscious about the damage we are doing to the planet. “The current bushfire crisis is making people realise things are getting warmer. Nimbin’s rainforest never burned before, now it’s on fire.“More awareness means more people are crying out for change.And so, the take up of solar power and using the sun’s energy to make electricity grew.“Once we’ve had the conveniences of turning lights on in our houses, we don’t want to see that go,” he said.“These days, a lot of people in town get solar and feed the power back into the electricity grid. “They use a grid-tie inverter that converts direct current (DC) into an alternating current (AC) suitable for injecting into an electrical power grid. “Inverters didn’t do that when we first started.”Dave checks out one of the solar system cabinets in the workshop.What does a solar system need?Dave said these days, most of their business is selling to people who want to have a solar set up which is not connected to the electricity grid.“One of the things we manufacture is a solar systems where the battery, inverter and regulator is contained in a waterproof cabinet which can be delivered to the site.“The regulator makes sure the solar panels don’t overload and the batteries are to store the generated electricity.“A stand alone system can cost 25-30K. They change as they get cheaper.“People have different requirements for their set ups and we manufacture what they need and lots of people cobble their own stuff together.”The companyThese days, Dave is the purchasing officer for the Rainbow Power Company.The company now has 30 employees – including people to handle IT, OHS, manufacturing, finances, head electricians and packers for shipping. And there’s also the company board of five members.“We ship all over the world – to places like the Pacific, Fiji and Vanuatu,” Dave said.“The sea is lapping at their feet and there is no electricity grid there.“Our company had no structure for years - it was chaotic in the early days.“We needed to make changes to the company to meet legal guidelines and OHS legislations, but our core values were always the same - we wanted to employ local people and pay wages into our local community.Dave takes a walk down memory lane as he looks at one of the old hydroelectric systems in the workshop.HydroRainbow Power Company also experimented with hydroelectric power generation in the early days.“We experimented with the mechanical side of creating a turbine - where the water source is piped into it and spins a wheel that turns the generator.“It evolved from being a concrete mould prototype into a boxed aluminium device. “But, eventually, it took too long to speed up the manufacturing process and keep it affordable.“Also, lack of water is an issue now, but years ago, we had plenty of water.”Moving to Nimbin Before he came to Australia in the 1980s, Dave was living in the UK and one day, he saw a Grass Roots magazine that talked about Nimbin and the work of Peter Pedals.“My father’s dream was to come to Australia,” Dave said. “Peter Pedals was my inspiration to go to Nimbin when I read the article about him.“A friend showed me the magazine and said I think I’ve found a place to live - and I thought I’d like to look there.“Peter was already living an alternative way of life - he ate raw food and made porridge out of bird seed. He created devices that could be powered by pedalling and powered juicers and washing machines with it.“He even cycled from Sydney to Adelaide and was featured in an in-flight magazine.”So, when dave arrived on the plane in Brisbane airport, he decided to check out Nimbin.He found a property at Webster’s Creek, at Blue Knob and built himself a cabin.“I was a builder as well and I built my cabin from scratch - it didn’t leak,” he said.When he moved into his shack, he bought a 12 volt solar panel and battery. “It’s easy when you know what you are doing,” Dave said. “Eventually I got a bigger solar system and ran a small fridge which was economical to run, made with brine in the walls.“I was able to run lights at night time so I could see and not step on a snake. Eventually I had a 10 inch black and white TV too.“I used to have a fear of spiders, but I got over it - and I got used to having lizards running around.”Dave also joined the Rural Fire Service and was an active volunteer for 20 years.The futureNow, 32 years on from when the company was first incorporated, Dave sees a strong future for the Rainbow Power Company.“I’m due to retire in a few years,” Dave said.“Jack is alive and well and living in Tamworth and Peter Pedals left the company about four years ago - but he’s still potting around."With a climate that is warming and growing public awareness about the need to move away from fossil fuels, the future looks bright for a company that looks to the sun for solutions.For more information about the Rainbow Power Company, visit https://www.rpc.com.au/

Once a clown, always a clown: Dr Sniggles (aka Helen Quinlan) was a Coca Cola yoyo champion when she was young.So, it’s not too surprising that she went on to become Australia’s first female Clown Doctor.Dr Sniggles - in charge of sneezes and giggles - has been bringing smiles to the folk at Lismore Base Hospital for 15 years now, as a Clown Doctor with national charity, The Humour Foundation.Clown Doctors have a mission to spread doses of fun and laughter to people in need across Australia and improve the quality of life for people in hospitals, health and aged care facilities. With a motto of ‘laughter is the best medicine’, their skills in improvisation, slapstick, magic, music, puppetry, singing, juggling and using found objects to bring humour to a situation always helps to lift people’s spirits.“Every time I see a squirty toy I want to buy it,” Dr Sniggles said.“I found a squirty toilet toy once, so I bought 10 of them. You lift the lid and it squirts water. “Often, I’ll give them to the nurses’ desk, still full of water. When someone sees it, they always want to open it and when they get squirted, it makes the nurses laugh.“When people who work there are smiling, it passes down the line.”When she visited Lismore Base Hospital last week with her Clown Doctor partner Dr Buttercup, to celebrate the 15 year anniversary of Clown Doctors being in the hospital, Dr Sniggles pulled out a plastic bendy straw and put it in her armpit and blew on the straw.The farting noise that came from her armpit made the passing nurses stop and laugh.See Dr Sniggles trick Dr Buttercup into sitting on a whoopee cushion at Lismore Base Hospital last week: https://www.facebook.com/LismoreApp/videos/2707271165997886/Dr Sniggles visits 10 year old Phoenix at Lismore Base Hospital. Read the story: Clown Doctors bring the whoopee to a hospital Christmas PassionSince she had her first meeting in 1996 with co-founders of the Humour Foundation, Jean Paul Bell and Dr Peter Spitzer, Dr Sniggles knew being a Clown Doctor was the perfect job for her.But her passion for clowning started many years before that. “As a child, I was never very good at sitting still and I was fascinated with jugglers,” Dr Sniggles said.“I had a perfect childhood to be a clown. I had a crazy dad in a busy household - and it’s common that clowns are the youngest in the family because they have an audience.”Dr Sniggles had her first clown costume made in grade one at school and remembers loving the comedy of Charlie Chaplin, The Three Stooges, Lucille Ball and the Harlem Globetrotters.Dr Sniggles picked up a lot of clowning skills over the years, from learning diablo and unicycle, to magic tricks and juggling. “I never got into juggling until I was living in London working as a lifeguard in a swimming pool,” she said.“One of my mates told me one of the swimmers was in Guinness Book of Records for juggling, so I would always bring my three tennis balls and leave them near the end of his lane and I asked him to teach me. “As we progressed, he took me on the tube and showed me how to juggle five balls in a moving carriage and how to earn money busking – but I still didn’t have the confidence.”When she came back to Australia in 1994, Dr Sniggles began working in a club in Kings Cross and used to juggle shot glasses – and she got noticed.“I was told there was a bushfire fundraiser and they were looking for a reliable clown, so I went,” she said.“I was so nervous I got off the stage in 30 seconds, but they told me I was fantastic and asked to perform at a party. Then that turned into being offered the half time entertainment slot at the Cronulla Sharks’ games. “So, I got over my fear of performing and started my own kids’ parties and it grew into contracts with shopping centres and corporate parties.“I made a living out of it at the time and I worked hard. But in this industry, you are busy when everyone else is on holidays like at new year – and it wasn’t conducive to being single mother.”Her son, now 24 years old, was discovered to be on the spectrum and Dr Sniggles said she had a difficult time raising him in Sydney.“I wanted to spend more time with him and was spending a lot of money on therapies, so I decided to move up to the Northern Rivers,” she said.“We moved up here in 2002 and it was the best move – my son loves it here and loves animals, so we have a house full of those.”Toilet paper becomes a funny situational prop for Dr Sniggles and Dr Buttercup with 10 year old Phoenix.From party clown to clown doctorWhen Dr Sniggles first met Jean Paul Bell in 1996 to talk about being a clown in hospitals, she said “a lot of people were not interested in it”.“But I thought it was the best idea ever,” she said.“I’d been sick as a kid and spent a lonely year, ill in bed - and when I was 12, I had appendicitis and was in hospital. “In those days, there were no specific kids’ wards. I was in a ward from the war time with a lino floor and an old man coughing – it was pretty scary. “When Jean Paul talked about having Clown Doctors, I saw how important it was to have this and help make people in hospital feel empowered.“It was the perfect job for me.”Then, she started clowning in the childrens’ hospital in Randwick in 1997.“The Humour Foundation had to approach the hospital and convince them why clowns were needed - and they let us have a go,” she said.“We needed to create an Australian Clown Doctor, which was different to the American or Austrian ones.“In America, the clowns have big, white faces – which comes from the circus era at the turn of last century, where the audience couldn’t get close and the clowns had to exaggerate facial movements.“But we wear little makeup and only a little nose, so kids see that we are human and not scary.”There are now 67 Clown Doctors and 16 Elder Clowns working in Australia with the Humour Foundation, in 23 different hospitals.“The Elder Clowns work in aged care and dress as older people wearing 50s and 60s era clothes and spread poetry dance, giving purpose to the lives of people that don’t get many visitors,” she said.Clown Doctors Dr Sniggles and Dr Buttercup with 10 year old Phoenix in Lismore Base Hospital.Clown SkillsDr Sniggles said it’s a “weird set of skills” you need to be a Clown Doctor.“You need to be empathic, compassionate, caring, fast thinking and play with things in situations that are not always happy and make light of it,” she said.Working in partnership with medical professionals, clown doctors help to put sick children and adults at ease in an often strange and unfamiliar environment, helping divert and calm them during procedures.“We often help kids understand the procedures they are going through by using toys and found objects,” she said.“I might use a hand towels to make a flower for people who haven’t got flowers - one girl sat bolt upright in bed when I showed her how to make a flower.“Music is important too – we use ukuleles and kazoos and we work with everyone in the hospital.“Every single person is important – the cleaner, admin and security guards and parents.“It’s important to give attention to the siblings of a sick child too – often they miss out on attention from their parents because of their sick brother or sister. “Christmas can be a tough time when people are in hospital and their families are not around.“Older patients are often stressed and we’ll ask them for commentary on our fashion, or take them on a virtual holiday where we get them to close their eyes and imagine they are on a cruise boat, while we play ukulele.  “It’s often about empowering a person who is not in control of what’s happening to them and make them feel they have some control over their lives.“I sometimes use a bendy man and gives it to kid and ask them to move it around and I act out the movement - they love it.“They might turn it or hit it on the head and I’ll sing - they have control of that - give them power and they will take it.“Parents have said they haven’t seen a smile like that forever.“It doesn’t take much to be kind.“We were in the emergency department once and my Clown Doctor partner started singing and the old lady in bed sat upright. “The doctor watched and said they couldn’t get that result from her – so the effect is noticed from every level.”International research has shown that laughing produces both physiological and psychological benefits. Doses of humour can help people relax, relieve fear and stress, boost the immune system and help recovery. The work of The Humour Foundation is funded only by public donations and sponsorship. They also have a giving program where people are asked to give a small regular donation to keep the Clown Doctors spreading smiles. Recently, the Clown Doctors went on an outreach tour to rural hospitals in places like Goondiwindi, thanks to sponsors of The Humour Foundation’s programs. “No one should miss out on laughter – it’s just as important when they live in the country,” Dr Sniggles said.TrainingWhile there’s a certain set of skills needed to be a Clown Doctor, there’s also a lot of on the job training. “Clown Doctors attend an annual conference where we share skills and get some high standard training,” Dr Sniggles said. “We are trained in infectious diseases control, hand washing, communication and improvisational clown skills.“We learn the do’s and don’ts of working with people on the spectrum – about not surprising people and checking with their parents - they know their kid’s capabilities and the toys they love.“One year we had to work in teams and learn to wax lyrical as we created a hip hop song together.“We share our experiences and support each other as well as share tricks.“We were shown how to make a rubber glove into a shark and a sumo wrestler face.“My son gets sick of listening to me always learning new songs for kids,” she laughed.With her ukulele and kazoo, and a pocket full of unusual objects, Dr Sniggles intends to keep doing her rounds of Lismore Base Hospital, doing what she loves best – clowning.DonateRelying on sponsorship and community support, the Clown Doctors program is looking for more people to donate money to allow them to expand their special service, which they provide to hospitals free of charge. They hope that in future, they can be on call every day in every hospital to spread the healing laughter.To find out more, or to donate to The Humour Foundation and help the national charity deliver the positive health benefits of humour to the Australian community, visit http://www.humourfoundation.org.au

Simon Watkins has been training people to be swim champions for most of his life.As a young athlete growing up in Wales in the UK, he injured himself, and found himself on a path toward helping others reach their potential as swimmers.Now, he lives in Lismore with his family, manages the Trinity Aquatic Centre as the head coach and coaches people with disabilities.This weekend, he’s in Sydney at the state age swimming championships with Trinity Catholic College student Tylah Crabtree and six other dedicated swimmers from the school.“Tylah is one of the top swimmers at Trinity at the moment and will have ten swims over the next week,” he said.“The Trinity swim club has a history of doing well in the past. “We’ve developed a group of athletes who are supportive of each other and compete at high levels.“Tylah will be swimming for the Olympic trials next June in Adelaide and we also have a group going to the national age championships in Perth.”BeginningsSimon started swimming at a young age - since his parents took him to the local pool and he discovered he had a natural affinity with swimming.“I started coaching people to swim when I was 16. By the time I was 21, I was the youngest accredited level three coach in the UK.“Now I’m a gold licence performance coach in Australia.”As well as being a competitive breaststroke swimmer when he was young, Simon was also a triple jumper in athletics. “I made it to the Commonwealth Games team in 2002 for athletics and swimming, but I injured my leg training for athletics,” he said.“I had to have operations on my right, leg, hip and ankle and had to stop competitive swimming.”Simon said it was because of the support of his own coach at the time that he threw himself into coaching others.“If I didn’t have such a great coach to mentor and drag me through that, I would have been different in how I handled it.“She helped me work through it and stay involved in sport and that made all the difference.”Now, Simon is doing the same for so many other young people – instilling dedication and discipline into people passionate about swimming.EmigrationSimon and his wife Hannah moved to Australia in 2008. “Hannah was a swimmer and a gymnast when I met her,” Simon said. “It was love at first sight.“I was coaching at a local pool in the UK and Hannah was there setting up the swim squad.“When we moved to Australia, we could see why it was called New South Wales – the landscape here looks like home.Hannah also coaches and runs swim schools in the local area, and now, the busy couple have a young baby and juggle their duties as parents with their coaching duties.Early morningsAs the manager of the Trinity Aquatic centre, he gets up at 4am every day and heads into work to open up the pool by 5am.“When you swim, you’re in because you love doing it,” he said.“I’ve been getting up at 4am ever since I remember – you either love it or don’t do it.“The kids I coach arrive at the pool by 5.45am and we train till 7.45am, then they are back in the afternoon for a mix of gym and swim.“It takes discipline to get up and get to training.“It really helps with their schooling too when they are a disciplined swimmer – they have to get their homework done at night so they can get up and train next morning.”Simon said not everyone on the swim team wants to be a competitive athlete – some may only come once a week.“People can come along and train at a pace that helps them with the goal they are trying to achieve,” he said.  “Some people swim for fitness and the social aspect.”“We have had an explosion in the number of Trinity students using pool and coming into program now.“I’ve been developing the program and club numbers have grown larger.”Developing coaches and swimmersSimon is also involved with the North Coast Academy swim program.“It’s an agreement between Swim NSW, myself, Trinity and the North Coast Academy to provide opportunities for top swimmers,” he said.“Swimmers trial to get in and we take 30 swimmers from the trial and they get extra sessions to work on techniques with me at Trinity.“I’m also on the board of Swim Australia and ASCTA NSW and I’m involved in the learn to swim program, and its direction around the country,” Simon said.“I look after swim schools and help with the direction and development of their programs, so they are teaching the right stuff.  “I did the same in the UK and now I do a lot of education with the coaches association, teaching people to swim.“I’m passionate about helping other coaches.“It’s about making every swimming program on the north coast stronger and better.Simon also writes a column in the Australian Coaches magazine and next year, he’ll be presenting at a conference in Dubai.Coaching tips“It’s about getting the fundamentals right and not compromising on skill and being determined to do the work and commit to the end goals,” Simon said.“When young people get into swimming, it’s about their long term development as an athlete and keeping them in sports for a longer period - with development milestones.“When it’s competitive, the pressure will always be there, but it’s about how you manage it.“As coaches, we guide athletes and give them tools to manage it themselves.ParaolympiansSimon has coached swimmers onto the Paraolympic championship Commonwealth team.He is currently working with the Hong Kong paraolympic team, supporting coach development.“I fly over here a few times a year to work with athletes and coaches,” he said.He started working with disables swimmers in Sydney, when he was approached by a para-athletes at a club he was coaching in.“I ended up working with the paraolympic program in Sydney, coaching Australian junior paraolympians and working with coaches.“We focus on ability not disability – what you can achieve and can do.“We provide an outlet and opportunity for them that they may not have in other sports.”One of the top paraolympian athletes he has worked is include Sean Russo - a world champion medallist.Keep goingSimon says that sport and competition “teaches you resilience in life all round - not just in sport”. “My advice for anyone who is passionate about sport is to keep going,” he said.“Persevere and be resilient - it’s the nature of sport.“It instils in us a work ethic and gives us a strong base to bounce back from.”

Goonellabah-based artist Karla Dickens is an Indigenous woman and activist who fights for the environment, women’s and Aboriginal rights.Her work is often confronting – tackling challenging issues of Australia’s oppression of Aboriginal people or domestic violence towards women.Her latest work, now on exhibition at Lismore Regional Gallery, is part of the Partnershipping Project, where artists were asked to re-imagine a real boat. Read more: Art boats sail into Lismore Regional GalleryKarla said she found her boat at the Lismore tip.“It’s a little yacht which I got my mate Lee Arnold to paint on,” she said. “I put a rusty union jack over the boat and on top is an archaic game from the 80s.“It represents the English colonisation of Australia and how when they first landed in Sydney Harbour, Aboriginal people weren’t sure if they were aliens or spirits. “It’s about how they leave the peoples of this country alienated and lost in space - it still impacts every indigenous person in the country.”It’s not the first time Karla has worked with boats and sculptures. She made an overturned boat sculpture which is now in the National Maritime Museum.“It had ‘unwelcome’ painted on the side and the oars were made into crosses,” she said.“I’ve done a lot of research about Sydney Harbour – there are so many horrific stories about what happened with first contact.“I needed to dig deep and find stories about this country’s history which have been whitewashed.“My art has given me and amazing opportunity to look at identity and history and I mash those conflicts together to bring awareness about it to other people.”To See not Not to See by Karla Dickens. Photo by Andrew Baker (www.andrew-baker.com)Growing upKarla grew up in Redfern, Sydney in a small family.“I have German and Irish heritage from my mum and my dad is a Wiradjuri man,” she said.“I grew up with a cross-cultural identity and I acknowledge that I have ties to the invaders as well as the First Peoples of this country. “I have ties to women that have been abused and the men who have been the abusers and I try to look at the whole story and all parts of me.”As a young woman, Karla said she was an addict and “grew up fast” in Sydney.“I came crashing down in my early 20s and went straight out of rehab into art school,” she said. “I’d always had a passion for art - I was just distracted for a while.”Karla then moved to the Hunter Valley and built a house made of stone and found objects from the Cessnock tip. Her house reflected her passion for sculpture, as well as her training as a painter. The Northern Rivers“I was looking for a place to settle down that wasn’t a major city and so I moved to the Northern Rivers,” she said.“I came up here to have a child in a place that was safe to be a gay mother.”Karla then got involved with opening Blackfellas Dreaming - an Aboriginal art gallery in Bangalow where she also displayed her own art.Bringing up a child as a single mother kept her busy and Karla said her daughter has been her catalyst.“She drives me to work as much as I do and made me take art more seriously,” she said.Major exhibitionsThese days, Karla’s work is well known and she has work in some of the major collecting institutions in Australia. She was part of an exhibition at Carriageworks in Sydney which looked at the Aboriginal Progressive Association.“It was formed in 1924 formed to get Aboriginal rights happening rights happening – about the time the black panther movement happened in the US,” Karla said.“In 1936, there was the first Day of Mourning – which was about Indigenous determination and changing the date of Australia Day and - they were fighting for what we are still fighting about now.She also won a Parliament House Award for creating an artwork of an Australian flag with handstitched crosses which reflects on the Day of Mourning. The flag is now in Parliament House.Art as protest“I love that art can be a form of protest - my art had a stronger and bigger voice than I do and my flag found its way inside,” she said.Karla now makes a living from her art and has a gallery representative in Brisbane who helps her sell her work. “I feel blessed that my art journey has evolved into how things are now,” she said. “For a long time my art was not saleable because was so honest and raw.“I think artists are shamans when it comes to what’s happening in the world, exploring things in people’s minds and hearts.”StorytellingKarla said her work crosses many forms of media and she uses any material that helps her tell a story. “I love using found objects,” she said. “When I use ironing boards to talk about Indigenous women’s stories in this country, mainstream Australia doesn’t connect it with our women. “They also don’t connect a pickaxe with Aboriginal men.“The stereotypical connection made is often with a weaving basket or a boomerang - but the First Peoples of this nation have a history of farming and working on this land.  “Those everyday items I used are a part of our history of domestic servitude and that’s been a massive part of my family history.“My great grandmother was a domestic and ended up dying traumatised.”Karla said when she was growing up, some of the stories from her grandmother “were on the table” and a lot of them were not.Silence“The silence was a part of a point in time and history,” she said. “Now people love doing therapy and talking - but my grandparents just got on with it.“You don’t bring up that stuff often – they were just worried about how to put food on the table.” ”My family was displaced at that times in Australia – if you could pass as other than an Aboriginal person, that was good.“Gran told me to say I was Italian and to stay out of the sun.”She made a series of masks for the National Art Gallery collection which was an installation of assimilated warriors – well dressed men in suit jackets covered in emu feather with farm equipment and a dog muzzle.She’s had work in the major exhibition Defying Empire and is currently creating art for the Sydney Bienalle next year, which will have its first Indigenous curator.She’s also just finished making a film Mother’s Little Helpers with writer Bruce Pascoe that involved photography and sculpture installations.With an amazing collection of art under her belt already, Karla is keen to keep doing what she does, challenging ideas about the status quo and bringing light to hidden histories.For more information about Karla’s work, visit her website http://www.karladickens.com.au/

You might know Rebekka Battista for her work as the Our Kids charity fundraising coordinator. The Lismore local who found love at the Gollan Hotel is also a trained chef and a pastor with the Lismore Centre Church. Rebekka’s long journey of helping her own sick child, led to her helping many others.Now, Rebekka Battista will be donating a kidney to her first born son, Isaak (21), on December 10. “Isaak was born with renal failure and received a kidney transplant at 8 years old from his father Gianpiero," Rebekka said. “After 14 years, it’s not going so well and his body is rejecting the kidney and he needs another one.“In the last six months, we did tests and found my kidney was compatible – it’s amazing that two parents are compatible.“Our prayer is that this one lasts 20 years. “We were always told that the first transplant would last 10-15 years and we nearly got there. I’ve known others who’ve had one over 25 years - every case is unique.Going in for major surgery to save her son’s life doesn’t faze her.“Gianpiero did it and he’s lived a normal life,” she said. “He’s active and the aim is to stay healthy as well, that’s my plan too. “I’ll be in recovery for the first month and won’t be running a marathon.”Rebekka takes part in the Samson Challenge.Our KidsRebekka has been working for local charity Our Kids, to raise money for equipment and facilities for Lismore Base Hospital’s children’s services.Her journey into the role began when Isaak was sick in 2003 and she and Gianpiero spent a lot of time at the in the hospital’s children’s ward with Isaak for treatment.“Isaak was in the special care nursery and when we were told he had renal damage, the doctor on call was Doctor Chris Ingall and he saved Isaak’s life,” Rebekka said.“It was at the same time that Chris was setting up Our Kids and as parents we spent a lot of time with him. “I’ve always been community minded and the children’s ward was like our second home. “I saw the need for Our Kids and I wanted to help the cause.“At the time, Gianpeiro and I were setting up a restaurant and that’s when the Our Kids calendar was being launched and they asked Isaak to be in it – so I helped to sell them.“After that, the job as Our Kids fundraiser came up and I applied for it and got it.”One of the big challenges for Rebekka was raising a million dollars to ensure that the Our Kids Our House project could be built.“Our House was to provide accommodation in Lismore for families and people who needed to stay near the hospital while receiving cancer treatment,” Rebekka said.“It was a $5.6 million project. We had a $3.6 million grant from the Federal Government and a half a million from the State Government, and I needed to raise the rest.“I raised $1 million in 18 months because we have a beautiful supportive community who they saw the need to get it built.”Rebekka raises money at a Melbourne Cup charity event.FundraisingBefore she was a fundraiser, Rebekka was working as a chef in her own business with Gianpiero.She said making the transition from being a chef to a fundraiser required a lot of the same skills. “You have to plan think on your feet and be a relationship person,” she said.“One day, I might be addressing a boardroom and an hour later I might be in a service hub or school – it’s a big learning curve to address different people.“To be a fundraiser, you need to believe in the cause you are asking for - if you don’t believe, you won’t achieve your goals. “You need to know the people you are asking from, so you can align the people with the cause.”Rebekka said she researches companies and businesses before organising fundraisers – whether they are golf days, lavish balls, or the Samson Challenge which asks sporting groups to align with the cancer cause.“Over time, you establish partnerships – fundraising is all about relationships, understanding business and bringing everything together in a way that is mutually beneficial.”Rebekka, Gianpiero, Isaak and Nathan at Nathan's recent graduation.Life, love and marriageRebekka was born and grew up in Lismore. She went Wyrallah Road Public School and Lismore Public School.“I’m a Lismore girl – my parents have been here a long time,” she said.Rebekka said she had to do Year 12 at school twice.“We had an excellent time partying the first time I tried to do year 12,” she laughed.  “Then I applied to uni to be a nurse, but I vomit at the sight of blood, so then I thought I’d like to join Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and I went to study at bible college – an international, interdenominational college for young people. “The college had a big focus on missionary work and I spent my second year there in Denver, Colarado.“When I was in high school, mum was the mum manager of Caroona rest home and my job was cleaning and domestics. It paid my way to college.“I cleaned toilets from 15-21 and had fun with the staff there - that was my training ground.”Rebekka said she came back from America because her friends were missing her.“I came home for a visit and my friends promised to pay my way back to America, but when I came home, I met Gianpiero.”Rebekka in Nepal, as part of her outreach work.Love in the Gollan“People think we met in Italy, but we met at the Gollan pub in Lismore,” Rebekka said.“Gianpiero had immigrated from Milan in Italy in 1994 and when I met him in the Gollan in 1995, I thought he looked pretty cute.“It wasn’t the moment I fell in love with him, but it was the moment he fell in love with me.”Three years later, Gianpiero and Rebekka married.Gianpiero and businessAfter returning to Lismore, Rebekka worked different jobs, starting with working at the local cinema, then entering the hospitality industry and working in restaurants.The hospitality connection between Gianpiero and Rebekka sparked the beginning of their restaurant business together.“We had food in common,” Rebekka laughed. “Gianpiero had built Café Giardino with his uncle, and when we got together, he sold his portion of the restaurant and we set up a wine bar Café Verde in the old Star Court Theatre in 1997.”The couple went on to run a series of restaurants – starting with one at Mary Gilhooley’s, before running the Left Bank Café, which was attached to the old art gallery on Molesworth Street.“We thought it’s important if you own a restaurant to be a chef, so I did my chef training and in my final year, I topped the state,” Rebekka said.“That’s when I was eight months pregnant with Isaak.“We bought the Left Bank and we had our first born son, thinking everything was happy and normal – unfortunately, that was not the case.“Eventually, the Left Bank building which was owned by the Council went out to tender, and even though we’d run it for 12 years, we didn’t get to keep it.“So Gianpiero went onto lecturing and I continued my work with Our Kids“It was time for a rest – I had a sick child and then I fell pregnant again with Nathan.”Helping is healingRebekka said having a sick child just accentuated her desire to help others.“I come from a family that’s always given back – my grandparents, mum and dad were always community minded.“Helping the children’s ward was important to me. Just because we live in Lismore, a regional town – why should we come second when it comes to health care? “Our Kids was a lovely way to focus my attention and was a healing for me because after Isaak. I also had post-natal depression.“Helping others helped me to pull through that.”Rebekka at the Centre Church.Faith and loveDuring her time in Lismore, Rebekka also become a pastor in the Centre Church.“That’s my first love,” she said.“I preach on weekends and lead the worship - My faith is love.”In these times where the world can seem a little crazy, Rebekka said praying to God and believing in Jesus grounds her.“It gives me great hope even when we’ve been through a lot.“Even through the low times, I can focus and trust that it’s going to be ok given and it’s given me a foundation to stand on and fall back on.“We are all created to believe in something – I believe in god.“It’s a lifetime journey to work that out. “It keeps me humble too. We are not all perfect.”Dreams and ministryOne of Rebekka’s dreams in life was to visit Africa, which she had an opportunity to do recently.“When Isaak’s class finished year 12, they wanted to do schoolies in Africa,” she said.“So I had the great honour of going and being mum and pastor and work over there.“That was incredible – and in January this year we took a team to Nepal and worked in an orphanage over there.“One of the highlights for me was helping people of other nations who aren’t doing it well.”Now, Rebekka’s youngest son Nathan (17) has just graduated from school and she’s just been to his formal.Perhaps hailed as one of the most influential women in our area, only the future will tell what Rebekka will do next.

Lismore-based artist Marion Conrow’s passion for the moving image has taken her artform to places no other artist has gone before.From creating projections and sculptures, to starting up Link TV, Lismore’s first independent television station, Marion – who has lived with a disability for 11 years - is now excited that her art is taking off.Museum of My Friends#1Next week, she’s off to Canberra, to exhibit her work Museum of My Friends#1 at Belconnen Arts Centre, as part of Flux - an exhibition of contemporary digital art from around the world by prominent d/Deaf and disabled artists. “Art is my life passion,” Marion said. “I’ve been working hard and I’m finally getting to exhibit in a major exhibition.“I’ve been regionally based all my life and as a woman with a disability it’s hard to get exposure, so finally cracking it is so exciting.”Her exhibition Museum of My Friends#1 was inspired by her desire to document the important people in her life.Marion Conrow and Devi Thomas with Marion's artwork Museum of My Friends#1.Brain InjuryAfter being in a car accident in 2007, Marion was left with a mild traumatic brain injury.“I became very isolated and unable to cope with external stimuli,” she said. “As a result I stayed at home and didn’t get to see my friends much. I was lonely and wondered how I could talk to them.So Marion started creating video projections of her friends such as Ana Wojak and Edda Lampis - which became part of a unique interactive artwork using 3D printing, stainless steel mesh and video projections.“I captured people in a time pod,” she said. “It’s a sculpture piece with and interactive track pad that I can press to choose a friend and see them dance or talk.“Part of it was a 3D scan in metal of a giant rhinoceros beetle – which I did through the Southern Cross University engineering department.“It was a groundbreaking experiment. It was a small beetle and we created it in a sculpture 1700 mm high – we tried four times before we got it. “They are the strongest creature on the planet and in Australia, they will probably be extinct soon.“There is a war on nature and I was thinking there will be no insects left - so I wanted the work to still be around in 100 years.”Her work with shaping stainless steel mesh is something she says no-one else is doing. “It’s hard to get and it’s hard to shape – I need an armature to shape it and I do it manually,” she said.Groundbreaking experimentsHer ideas for her groundbreaking sculpture techniques sometimes come from dreams, and due to her experimental approach with materials and techniques, Marion said she’s still working it out.“I had a dream that I could draw grids on the mesh to work out the shape, before tensioning and shaping it,” she said. “I like inventing things.”Marion’s art has evolved over her lifetime, but she thinks her childhood experiences could have formed some of the way she looks at the world now.Preservation“I originally grew up in in Gippsland, Victoria,” she said.“My dad was open cut miner and we lived in Yallourn - it was a beautiful designer built town that was dug up for coal.“I read that people dealing with the loss of their home town often collected objects to hold onto or capture memories - when you’ve lost something you want to try to preserve it.“And also, my memory is pretty bad since the accident."New mediaFrom studying drawing and ceramics when she was younger, to cutting edge experiments with projections, Marion is passionate about her journey with new media.“It’s rare a painting does anything for me, but a moving image hits my heart,” she said.“I studied music video at SCU and was the first visual arts student to do it – you usually have to be a musician.”Link TVThen, in 1991, she looked into setting setting up Link TV – an independent television station in Lismore. “It was one of the first regional stations to go to air,” she said. “I fought for the licencing and I went to Parliament in Canberra to outline my submission.“Setting up a community TV station was about creating a voice for people.“The biggest barrier is getting rid of monopoly - it was about opening it up for everyone. “The art of the TV station was that it was an installation sculpture.“I put all my energy into that – about 80 hours a week for years and I got burnt out."Scenes from Marion's artwork Museum of My Friends#1.Off the planet“Now, in last 12 years people think I’m a crazy lady with a brain injury – Sometimes I was off the planet and I had no idea.”Marion said after she wrote off her car in the car accident, her traumatic brain injury remained undiagnosed for a long time.“I talked and looked normal and I didn’t know what was wrong with me,” she said.“In my brain, tears had formed in the frontal lobe. It made decision making hard and I lost attention quickly.“I was lucky I could go out at night but I couldn’t leave the house in the daytime.“I had so much cognitive fatigue from trying to process information.“If a car drove past me it would put me off balance and I’d be exhausted after a ten minute conversation. Sometimes I’d go to the Winsome and dance and that helped me move from severe depression into being happy.“Every brain injury is different – it can affect memory, and for me I was acting on auto pilot – not conscious of where I was and I might say or do dangerous things like get on tables and dance in public - I was a wild child.“I felt like I had another person inside me with no memory and struggled to do anything.“If I had to do something the next day, tired Marion would lay out the clothes or breakfast for the other Marion so she’d be ready to go the next day. “I lost a lot of weight because I couldn’t go shopping."DiagnosisMarion said it was four years before she went to see a doctor and demanded she see a neuropsychologist, or get an MRI done, but doctors wouldn’t take her seriously that she had a problem. “I even rang up brain injury services,” she said. “It took three days to work up to do that phone call.“The North Coast Brain Injury Service helped me get diagnosed. They did a test on me and saw the brain damage and put me on anti depressants.“In NSW, there’s no real support network for people who seem to be functioning ok.“So when I do my art now, everything else goes out the window. I can only do one things at a time and sometimes bills don’t get paid.“I was working in nightclubs doing installations every week, before I had the accident.“I realised I had a special brain before - because I could visualise a sculpture and produce it.:But after the injury, I had to write down every step and do them one at a time.”“Half of my ideas come from dreams – I like working with layered fabric and projecting onto it."All those party nights in Byron is where I had lots of practice playing with projections, layers and installation."Ana Wojak in Marion's artwork Museum of My Friends#1.CollaborationMarion has been working with projections and installations for 25 years now, including at last year’s NYE Tropical Fruits party where she lit up a wall with dancing human forms.“My art is becoming quite complex – more sculptural too. “I love collaborating with others and have been doing it a long time, working with performers all over Australia.”Marion had also been collaborating with local disability arts group Real Artwork, who will be holding the UnUsual Festival in Lismore next week.“Zeb and Sunita from Real Artworks often they get me on board and give me a brief and I work with their team,” Marion said. GrantsWith over 100 collaborative projects under her belt so far, Marion made it big when last year she received an Australia Council grant.With this money and the support of the people at the Urban Art Project, she kept making her art. “I do a lot of the video editing and I work with an interaction designer in Melbourne,” she said.  “I get most of my income from parties and grants – but no-one is buying my work yet – I’m not well known enough.“But I’m excited to be regional woman with a disability who will soon be doing a big show in Canberra. “It might have the potential to take me to big places.”Even if she gets big in the art world, Marion said her strong creative arts community in Lismore is what keeps her world turning round.“My creative friends are awesome,” she said. “We have culture forming in regional areas and I love it.”FluxMarion’s art will be in the exhibition Flux on Friday, November 29 until February 7, 2020. The exhibition features video, virtual reality, and interactive digital work by artists from Australia, the UK, Europe, and Asia.The exhibition showcases the way disabled artists have utilised the potential of digital technology to explore the variations of lived experience in the world, from the fluctuating individual experience of disability to the diverse collective emotional experience of a whole city.To see some of Marion's work, visit her website https://marionconrow.com/

Northern Rivers Tiny Homes owner and operations manager Allison Rainbird sees tiny homes as a solution to the future of housing. Registered as caravans, they are perfect for eco-minded people ready to downsize and embrace minimalistic living, without a lot of possessions.Allison and her team of builders and carpenters are putting the finishing touches on their showcase tiny homes, ready to display them at a Tiny Homes open day at Clunes Hall on November 30.Allison Rainbird outside 'The Clunes' tiny house.The beginningIn 2018, Allison Rainbird was surfing the internet one day and found information about tiny homes – and she thought she’d like to build one and put it on land as a holiday home for herself.“I love vintage caravans and I was renovating my 1929 house at the time,” she said.“I’d never renovated before and I was looking for period fixtures and materials to do the work.“I really wanted the renovation to be authentic to the period.“So I started looking for some solid building contractors to work with, who were engaged in the build and cared as much as me about the finished product.”That’s how she found the builders and carpenters now working with her in the business.As a homeowner and a renovator, Allison said she’s a “perfectionist” and is always looking for the right finishes and materials for each tiny home her team creates.“Lots of times I have an idea for something, but my builder says it won’t work, but that we can do a different version of it,” she said.Inside 'The Clunes' tiny home.Where to buildWhen Alison was looking for somewhere to set up her Northern Rivers Tiny Homes business, she said it took a long time to find somewhere tall enough to accommodate building homes inside.“I needed something at least 4.5 metres high with a roller door and there was nothing in the region,” she said. “I even looked as far as Tweed Heads.“So I started work in my driveway.“We were going through a research and development phase.“I’d be in the house on the web chasing materials, and the builders would be outside building and would call me every now and then to make decisions.”In August 2018, finally she found a workshed in the Lismore industrial estate with an outdoor and indoor space - perfect for tiny home building.Working with builders and carpenters Martin Shields, Iain Wills and Phil Smith, as well as local electricians and kitchen cabinet makers, she kept building her tiny homes.“I’m so happy I found people to work with who were engaged in the build and who wanted the challenge and bring something of their own to it.”“My team suggests things I would never have thought of – like adding in a mobile home outdoor bbq and shower attachment.“I love their ‘can do’ attitude.“Sometimes, they will all be inside the tiny home building at the same time, in a tight space all working around each other on electrics, plumbing, kitchen and floors.”Research and developmentWhile she was in the research and development phase of working out how to build efficient tiny homes, Allison attended a Tiny Homes open day in Melbourne, where she got a lot of ideas. The tiny homes are about 4.3 metres high, 2.5 metres wide and weigh up to 4.5 tonnes.“Martin who was the man behind the open day gave us a lot of tips we learned from his problems in building them,” she said.“We bought our first trailer for moving the homes from him.” “A 3.5 tonne tiny home can be pulled by a Landcruiser,” she said. “We can create and modify designs as needed.Inside 'The Clunes' tiny home.PerfectionBeing a perfectionist is one of the reasons Allison has built beautiful, practical and energy efficient tiny homes.Her eye for detail has created small buildings with matching colour schemes all the way through the wood work, bench finishes, trimmings, appliances and tiny details such as the toilet pipes being hidden from view.“It’s the tiny details that matter,” she said.“I want people to have the impression of a quality build.“I wanted a house light and airy, where you don’t need air conditioning because the design lets the air flow through.“There are windows set high up in the walls to allow cross ventilation and keep the house cool. Allison said when her team fitted the compost toilet, Allison said she didn’t want to be able to see the pipes, and her builder found a way to make it happen.OptionsEach of the tiny homes Allison and her team are building have their own names - named them after tiny towns in the local area.“We love being a local business and being known for being local – we even buy materials local as much as possible,” she said.The deluxe model is called The Clunes and the new, cheaper model is the Larnook.“The deluxe model has all the extras and costs about $125,000 and can sleep five people across three areas,” she said.“The basic model costs about $99,000.”The Clunes The extras in the deluxe model are details such as black accents, french doors, and an extra mezzanine level for storage or sleeping, which Allison said takes a lot of extra labour to build. “It’s great if you have kids and we can make changes to the design depending on what you need.“I insisted on having proper stairs to the upper sleeping area. “I thought about children and older people who don’t want to be climbing up a ladder.”In the kitchen near the bench are USB plug in points, next to the conventional power points. “Everyone needs to charge their phone and you don’t want lots of chargers taking up space,” Allison said.“Colour matching was a big focus.“There’s a black stainless steel fridge, but this can be customised. “The deluxe lounge has a wide seat you can tuck your feet under, not like the skinny caravan seats.“There’s a spot for a TV and a TV connection.“The cheaper versions have a click clack lounge.“We can also build cheaper options where the roof is not so high.”Inside 'The Clunes' tiny home.Social housingIf people from social housing organisations want tiny homes for people to sleep in and they need disability housing, Allison and her team can change the design.“We can make it all on one level, with a bathroom wet room for someone in a wheelchair – this also can cut building costs and make it cost effective,” she said.“We can also design tiny homes as emergency housing, where people use it for sleeping and the amenities are outside. “It’s cheaper to build bunk beds in these too.“We’re open to anything people might want.”“Social housing tiny homes is a great opportunity to give back to the community and give people who can’t afford homes a second chance“In a flood town, a moveable home on wheels could be an ideal solution” Game changerWhen building her tiny homes, Alison said she wanted the fridge to be as close to full size as possible, rather than a small bar fridge that might be found in a caravan.“People living a sustainable lifestyle will have more fresh produce than packaged cupboard food, so they’ll need a bigger fridge,’ she said.“It could be a game changer.’Her tiny homes are designed to stand alone and be ecologically friendly and off the grid with a water tank and solar panel.There’s a compost toilet, LED lighting, energy saving fans, hot water system and oven, thick walls for insulation.“But in summer if someone wants AC or a microwave, it’s easy to plug the home into the power supply,” she said.“They can plug into the electricity and use a hose connection for water, just like a caravan “They are good for people who want to live harmoniously on the land and reduce their footprint.LearningIn two years, Allison has learned so much from renovating a house to building tiny homes.“I understand now how to communicate with builders,” she said.“I speak in millimetres now.”RegulationAllison said the tiny homes industry is unregulated at the moment, but her team builds to Australian building standards.“It’s the safest way to build something this big and heavy,” she said.“People love the idea of tiny homes and they might see the American ones on the TV – but they are not the same as here. “Some people might think a deck on top is a great idea, but it would need a lot of heavy structural materials and we want to keep the house as light as possible.’“It also needs to move around so we have used screws instead of nails to allow for the movement.”The future“In this region, people can’t afford normal housing and can’t live like that anymore,” Allison said.“People who want to be less materialistic and own less possessions want to be part of the tiny house movement. “If you can’t embrace that, then the tiny house living is probably not for you."In a fairly new industry, fitting tiny homes into a regulatory structure in council planning will be one of the future challenges.“Tiny homes can be a good option for people renting on AirBnB, or who have teenagers, elderly parents or extended family,” Allison said.“You can put it on land where someone has space.“It’s ok to be used on a sporadic basis, like for seasonal accommodation for woofers.“If it’s a secondary dwelling for a member of your household, it’s ok.“But if you are living on vacant land alone, you’ll need approval from the council.“We urge people to meet council regulations before committing to buying.”Tiny homes open dayNorthern Rivers Tiny Homes is having an open day on Saturday, November 30 at Clunes Hall. On display will be two completed tiny homes on wheels and there will be a talk at 10am.Food and coffee will be available to purchase and there will be a jumping castle for the kidsYou can just show up or register before the day on Eventbrite for a chance to be in the running to win a beach house holiday at Wooli.For more information, visit the website https://www.northernriverstinyhomes.com.au/

Tregeagle-based surgeon Doctor Sally Butchers not only saves lives in the surgery – she’s also danced for a cancer charity. Sally is one of the general surgeons at Lismore Base Hospital - and she’s a dedicated fundraiser whose work has been showcased in a new podcast series called Destination Medicine.“From a young age, I always wanted to be a doctor,” Sally said. “My father was an anaesthesiologist and my mother was a nurse.”Sally has been living in the Lismore area for 12 years and loves working in a regional area.She’s passionate about bringing quality care to people who don’t live in major cities and wants to encourage other medical professionals to bring their skills to regional areas. Sally said she moved up to the Northern Rivers because the rural lifestyle appealed to her.“I grew up in Sydney and there’s a big difference between working in a regional area and a city - there’s no traffic,” she said.“I originally came here as an intern and then as a surgical registrar and liked the hospital and the support I received here from the medical community - and it’s a beautiful area to live in.”“In a smaller community you get to know people at local markets and around town and see how things are going for them,” she said.On callAs an on-call surgeon, Sally operates in public and private practices in the Northern Rivers, including at Lismore Base Hospital. “When you’re on call, you don’t know what will comes through - it could be an appendix or bowel obstruction – or a leg wound that needs to be cleaned and closed, or a hernia trauma,” she said.“Most of the surgeries I do are elective and so we know what we are looking at.”Sally said the most common operations she does are relating to skin cancers, hernias and gall bladders. “We have an amazing oncology department at Lismore Base Hospital and it’s great that people no longer have to travel to the Gold Coast and Brisbane to get cancer treatment,” she said.“And the treatments for breast cancer and melanomas has come on so far, patients know they have a better chance of survival.”TrainingTo become a doctor, Sally spent six years studying medicine at Newcastle University before doing post graduate training and an internship in Sydney.“There’s a lot of study and it doesn’t stop there,” she said.“I’m just back from a conference in Ballarat and I’m always learning and staying up to date with medical trends.”Sally has been the Chair of the rural section of the College of Surgeons for nine years and supports junior doctors who want to be surgeons.“I run training seminars presentations for junior doctors,” she said. “And I take part in medical summits to see how we can help advocate for rural communities to have good medical professionals train, work and live here.”First operationSally remembers the first operation she saw.“I was in year 10, doing work experience at a children’s hospital and was an observer at the operating theatre for the first time,” she said. “I loved it.”Then, when she was learning to be a surgeon and make surgical incisions, Sally said she would always be with experienced doctors in the operations and attached to a team.“The training was on the job – we would assist and then be allowed to scrub in with the doctor and help - that’s why training takes so long,” she said.“These days, there are more simulations and online trainings.“The more you hold the scalpel in your hand and performs surgeries, the more comfortable you are doing them.“If I come across something I’ve not seen before, I phone a colleague and get advice and assistance.“I like problem solving. It’s a bit like being a skilled detective and coming up with a solution.“If a kid has abdominal pain, I work out it’s the appendix or something else.“It’s a privilege and responsibility to have someone’s life in your hands - and you have to be mindful that none of us are perfect 100% of time.“I’m grateful that people are willing to let me look after them.”When dealing with life and death, Sally said having a supportive team of people around you is important.“You know you are not dealing with it on your own,” she said.“I chose to work in Lismore because I knew I could surround myself with good people who support me – not only at work, but outside work too, from my friends and my husband.”Dr Sally Butchers with Anne McLean at the recent Our Kids Melbourne Cup luncheon fundraiser. Read more: Glitzy Melbourne Cup luncheon raises money for Our Kids Helping and fundraisingSally said she enjoys helping people.“I’m part of a good team giving good patient care with good community outcomes,” she said.“I also like to help out through other activities like fostering art therapy workshops for breast cancer patients - and getting involved with fundraisers for local charity Our Kids.Sally also took part in the 2019 Stars of Lismore - Dance For Cancer fundraiser.She spent four months learning a Cuban style dance which she performed on stage and raised the most money for the Cancer Council out of all the participants.“I’m off to the awards for being the highest fundraiser,” she said. “I spent six months fundraising for it and hosted a high tea, karaoke events, lunches, cake baking and raffles. “I’m also looking forward to doing the New York marathon next year as a fundraiser - and I’m taking my husband. It will be a good challenge.”Destination MedicineSally was approached to be part of the Destination Medicine podcast series, and in her podcast episode, she talks of the opportunities available for doctors who want to work in regional areas. “A big focus now is to get more young people to stay and work in places like the Northern Rivers,” she said.“We have an ageing population and about 30% of Australians live in regional areas and 22% of surgeons live in regional areas.“There’s often a focus on doctors doing training in metropolitan areas, but it’s important for trainees to realise that training in regional and rural centres can enhance their future prospects in their chosen field.”The Destination Medicine podcast series helps young medical trainees navigate the path from medical school to being fully-fledged doctor - where they need to choose what area of medicine is for them. With so many medical specialities, it can seem like a maze - there are over 23 specialities, 81 fields of speciality practice and 86 speciality titles. “There are lots of options depending on your interests - whether you want to be a GP or a pathologist,” she said“A lot of young doctors don’t know what they want to do until they try it.“Some specialities are struggling to have enough practitioners in regional areas – like those who work with bladders and prostate conditions.”Sally encourages anyone with a passion for being a doctor or a surgeon to look for training options and get help to find the right fit for them.“The Regional Training Hub and College of Surgeons are there to match people to what’s right for them and find opportunities for people who want to work in regional or remote areas. “We are slowly expanding our surgical workforce so we can share the load more.”Podcast episodeDr Sally Butchers will feature in Destination Medicine, Episode 8: 'Sally takes surgical career off the beaten track'. The episode will be available on December 18, at http://www.destinationmedicine.com.au or any podcast app. Destination Medicine was produced by the Northern NSW Regional Training Hub network. The network was created in 2017 by the Federal Government to promote and help organise specialist training in regional areas.  

Multi-award winning songwriter and music producer Chris Fisher writes songs, sings, plays guitar, piano and mandolin. He has become a well-known face in the local music industry over the past three decades and “can’t seem to kick the habit” of music. The man with gyspy blood who walked away from a career in environmental science has now made a living out of music - and even teaches music to Indigenous children in Central Australia.You might have seen Chris Fisher playing piano and singing at the Dusty Attic in Lismore every Friday from 4-6. Or maybe playing guitar at one of many pubs or festivals in the local area over the past three decades – but Chris Fisher is not big on the limelight. While Chris Fisher started learning piano from his mum at the age of 8, it wasn’t until this year that he took on his first public piano gig.“I never presented myself as a piano player until recently,” Chris said.Musical origins“As a kid I was into making music and I learned guitar as a teenager.“My dad played piano and harmonica and I would sing along around the piano – then my brother in law and eldest sister and I were in a bush band.“I took piano lessons from my mum from the age of 8 and mum and dad would get me on the piano at parties.” Chris left home at the age of 15 and moved to Warrnambool in Victoria “because it was a long way from Far North Queensland”.Eventually, he went to Townsville University to study environmental science and while he was there, he started playing gigs at the folk club. “I was 18 when first time I played in public,” he said.“I started a bush band with other environmental scientists - and I played the mandolin and called the dances. “We were the flat bufo bush band – named after the cane toad – bufo marinus.“When I finished my degree, I was inspired to make music my full-time career. “I didn’t want to work in science, but I wanted to write music with an environmental message.”Gypsy bloodHis parents immigrated to Australia from England in 1958 and moved to Townsville, where Chris was born.“Mum and dad came as ten-pound poms with my two brothers and sister,” he said.“I’m the only member of my family born in Australia.”His great grandmother was a Romany gypsy and he said the gypsy blood is definitely in him.“I have a skin tone that doesn’t make sense with the Scots and English blood,” he said.“When I learned about the gypsy connection in my heritage later in life, it made sense to me - and musically, it gave me somewhere to hang my hooks.“I was inspired creatively by my mum – she was a creative soul who researched our family history.“My mum published four books of poetry and wrote a family history in prose.“It inspired me to start writing my first songs, and in my early career as a musician I put her poetry to music.“She’s passed on now, but her lyrics are a wonderful legacy."Pictured: Chris Fisher.A career in musicChris fell in love and married - and when he and his wife were pregnant with their first child, he wanted to move to the North Coast to bring up their child here.“I was very motivated with music when I came here to live the dream,” he said.“I worked hard to establish myself at local venues and built up my name as a soloist.“I really wanted to make a living out of music – then I could travel and sing my songs.”Chris recently played with the Wendy Ford band at the 2019 Dolphin Awards, organised by the North Coast Entertainment Industry Association (NCEIA) - and said he was at the first Dolphin Awards in 1991.“That was when I won Best New Talent as a songwriter with an environmental message,” he said.“Since then, I’ve won 11 awards and recorded five albums.“Because I was active in the local music scene, I met a lot of people through the Dolphin Awards.“I was there when NCEIA was formed at the Bangalow pub and our collective put our local music on the map.”Chris said he’s always liked to collaborate with others. Over the years, he’s been in bands and at one point, Chris Fisher and the Essentials were a hit in the local pub rock scene and also played at festivals in Tamworth, Woodford and Port Fairy. “Music is a habit I can’t seem to kick,” he said.“I get positive feedback for what I do – sharing my values and ideas as I sing about the environment.“There’s a growing movement and awareness in regard to our planet and musically, my creativity adds to what we need to do.“I’m still inspired to write new songs, but I’m more cynical now than I used to be. “I spend more time navel gazing and dwelling on personal emotions and the human condition - I can’t take myself seriously.”Music productionChris has a music production studio at his home in Goonellabah, which he built with his wife of 22 years - Marcelle Townsend-Cross.“I can be as creative and noisy as I like there,” he said. “I’ve recorded two albums there, including an album by Monkey and the Fish A Place of Hope – which won album of the year at the Dolphin Awards.“It was inspired by mum dying and was a tribute to her. ‘A Place of Hope’ was one of her poems.”One of the Dolphin Awards Chris won for was for best album production.“Getting a production award for a high level of work was great recognition,” he said.“The song The Smell of Rain won production of the year and album of the year too.”Chris said his skill at being to hear sound was by listening and learning.“You learn over time,” he said. “It’s all about letting the song be its most potent through musical arrangement, whether it’s heavy, country or techno.“I’ve learned a lot from Dave Hyatt – a co[producer from Nimbin who’s in Scotland now. He was a legend at recording.”Chris has also started an independent music production label called Fruit Bat Music.Pictured: Monkey and the Fish.Monkey and the FishChris met Marcelle over a baby change table at a day care centre.“We both had boys who were toddlers and we were changing shitty nappies,” he said.“We were both in relationships at the time and later we got to know each other when we worked on a musical project together to put on a concert for the local Bundjalung community and I asked her to be an MC.”Marcelle is an Indigenous Australian woman who is a lecturer at Southern Cross University’s Indigenous College, GNIBI.“We didn’t actually get together until later when we started collaborating as Monkey and the Fish and making music,” Chris said.“We had a barefoot hippy wedding in Nimbin and started living together and became the Brady Bunch from hell with seven little Australians.“Between us we had five kids and then took on another couple of kids when Marcelle’s sister passed away and we adopted her daughter.”APY landsAbout nine years ago, Chris took an opportunity to teach music at schools in the APY Lands in Central Australia.“I did some teaching in a TAFE program aimed at indigenous youth and through that I got the opportunity through the Outback Foundation to go to APY Lands,” he said.“I still go over there a few times a year and teach music to the kids.“The whole idea to have continuity – there’s such a lack teachers there. “White fellas come and go and the idea is to keep coming back.“I get welcomed home when I go back out there now - some families have claimed me and the kids really love it.“On the Monkey and the Fish album, we have a song featuring kids from the community there singing with us in Pitjantjara language.“I set up a mobile recording studio out there and that’s been fun.”The future of musicChris is planning on recording a new album in the next year, and says it takes time and money – and persistence.“I keep thinking about making music videos for my songs - it’s important to get your music out there,” he said.While Chris has become a local music icon, he said he some people tell him “I thought your music would take off more”.“It’s hard to get yourself noticed as a musician sometimes,” he said.“I’m happy to have a living and a vocation as a musician and an artist - it’s a privilege.“Some people are stuck on a treadmill and can’t afford to have a real conversation about how they want to live their lives.” If anyone is thinking of pursuing music as a career, Chris’s advice is “get joy out of performing”.“If you can live your dream and play music, then you’ve already succeeded,” he said.“It’s hard to get recognition in the mainstream - you need to find a niche and diversify and don’t be a prima donna.“Be happy if you have a vocation – it’s a luxury to have choice to be an artist or muso.”East Lismore Bowling ClubChris has taken on a regular gig running the East Lismore Bowling Club music program.Every Thursday night, there’s something on and Chris invites musicians and music lovers to come along and take part, or contact him and book themselves in for a slot. “I really want to develop the entertainment there and every first and third Thursday night there’s an open mic fruit bat music club,” he said.“The third Thursday is the Australian Songwriters Association wax lyrical night of original music by songwriters.“The second and fourth Thursdays will be music by me and special guests.”To contact Chris, visit his website http://fruitbatmusic.com/Fruit_Bat_Music.html or via Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/fruitbatmusicClub.openmic/

From the changing tastes in sheets, to understanding thread count, John Daley and Matthew Healy from Daleys Homewares and Monogramming on Woodlark Street have seen a lot over three decades. There’s been floods and a change of premises and owners, but the family business is still going strong.  The biggest embroidery business in regional NSW is celebrating 30 years of being in business and John and Matthew shared their journey with The Lismore App as they remembered the changing face of the Lismore business over the years, the friendships and the practical jokes with neighbours.John Daley is now retired from running Daleys Homewares and Monogramming, and he’s passed the business on to family member Matthew Healy.John originally started the business in October 1989 in the Strand Arcade, with his wife Nolene and their three children who helped out in the shop.“I used to work for Macleans (Glynns-Mac) and I could see they were having problems, so I thought I’ve got to get out of here,” he said.“They sold the building and it turned into an arcade, and that’s where I opened a shop.“Then, in 1996, I shifted to the location the shop is now in.” Manchester history“I was always interested in selling Manchester – I had a job selling it as a kid,” John said.“All the sheets and towels used to come out from England on a boat and Australians had no idea what manchester was – they called it sheets and towels. “It was never going out of fashion. “Sheets used to be all made of heavy cotton, but tastes have changed. “Sheridan made it easy for me - they became a big name and quilt covers were seasonal with different patterns.“In the 60s and 70s there were lots of European locals here, and they wanted continental quilts.“We had no idea what they were talking about. “Australians used a blanket on top of the bed that didn’t go over the sides of the bed. Then the feather doona became popular here and Australians put a sheet under the doona – they don’t do that in Europe. “It’s so Australians didn’t have to wash the doona cover all the time.”Changing tastes“It’s more humid here – the Australian climate is different,” Matthew said.“I sell 10 natural sheets to one poly sheet. Polys are slower selling than they used to be four years ago.”“In the 1970’s people didn’t want to buy fitted sheets when they first came in – because they didn’t look right when they were hanging on the washing line,” John said.“People couldn’t fold them properly – and they still can’t.“There are no flat sheets sets sold now, always mixed fitted and flat.“Now people like buying soft throws, blankets, pillows and cushions. There’s good money in cushions.”John said at one stage, he wanted to open a cushion shop.Home beautifulThere’s a home beautiful consciousness that their shop fulfils, and there will always be a need for sheets.“It’s a throw away world,” John said. “We used to keep sheets until they had holes in them, then they would get cut in half and the outside edges sewed back together.”FamilyMatthew said John’s grandmother is his great grandmother. John’s family is originally from Alstonville - where the Daley family had made a name for itself – even the main street of Alstonville is called Daley Street.Matthew used to work in the corporate sector and decided to retire. That’s’ when John decided to sell the business and Matthew jumped in.“I heard Matthew had retired and I said to him ‘do you want to sell Manchester?’,” John said.“Just because I went into retirement doesn’t mean stop,” Matthew said. “If you stop, you die. My father was the same.”The ‘old days’ of the Lismore blockJohn said when he first opened the shop, there were no empty shops around the block.“As a kid I’d walk around the block shopping with mum,” he said. “There were so many shops.“Molesworth Street used to be the main street and the whole inside block was retail, but now it’s lots of real estate and coffee shops and banks.“There used to be a lot more variety in the shops too. “These days, there’s lots of individuals in business around the block, like Maven and Bohotopia - rather than the chain stores you see in Lismore Shopping Square.“People these days often go shopping up the coast at Pacific Fair now we’ve got a fast highway.” The ‘sales’ daysJohn said he remembers the after Christmas sales in the 1980’s and early 90s.“We had a security guard on the door – it was one out and one in.“In 1997, we had a sale with 10% off in the first hour till we reached 30% off. I made a month’s income in one day.“Things have changed now, newspapers are dead, TV is not what it used to be, and online advertising has changed everything.”Matthew said he made a decision to not have sales anymore, because “we have the best price every day”.“There’s not a high margin of profit in what we sell, he said.What is thread count in sheeting?“People don’t understand thread count,” Matthew said.“1000 thread count doesn’t mean that its better. They often have two threads twisted together to bring the number up.“I tell them to feel the sheets. You need to open the packet and feel it. “Bamboo might not be to everyone’s taste because it has a silky feel.“There’s no Australian standard for thread count. “To make the thread count look bigger, they just change the measurement they look at when counting threads.“For example, rather than threads per centimetre, it is counted in threads per 10 centimetres to make it up to 1000 thread count.“If there’s 1000 crap threads, it’s a crap sheet.”“They used to count threads using a thread counter. It’s like a magnet and a pin,” John said.Competition and shopping local“In my era, everything was all Australian made,” John said.“Now there’s so many things made overseas and the prices are lower. “But we advertise that we sell Australian made products and people want to buy them and support local industry.“Places like Big W might sell manchester that’s cheaper, but it’s bottom of the market.“People often think the big chains are cheaper – like Kmart and Spotlight. “The products have lower quality and they are not necessarily cheaper.”“People come in and tell us they like to shop locally,” Matthew said.“It’s a tough retail business. “I’m lucky we have good neighbours – especially in times of flood. “We look after each other and joke around."John tells the story of how he swapped the roll-a-door of his shop with Blueys one and didn’t tell John the owner.“We were watching him trying to close it from across the road at the pub, but it was too small for his door,” he said.“We were all laughing. We swapped it back later.”FloodsWhen John moved into the Woodlark Street shop, he loved that it had an upstairs area “which was good in case of flooding”. “I always had a flood plan, but never had to move stuff after the 1989 flood.“It was after I sold the business to Matthew that the 2017 big flood came.“In 27 years, we never had a flood in the shop till then.”Matthew said when the 2017 flood did come, he packed everything onto shelves just above the high water flood level at 1.2 metres.“On the Thursday it flooded, I started lifting and my neighbours, John and Dianne from Blueys Café helped me lift everything – it took eight hours.“We had 900 ml on the floor of the shop for three days while the water was in the town.“We were open on the Monday after the flood but we couldn’t find the cash register until the afternoon,” he laughed.“We used to have carpet here, but it’s just concrete now. So we can hose it out and get the flood gunk off - otherwise you can’t get rid of the smell. “After the flood, we cut our big display table in half so we could lift them more easily.“Shop owners need to fit out shops with floods in mind - and make them as flood resilient as possible.”Matthew Healy in the upstairs area of Daleys Homewares and Monogramming on Woodlark Street with the embroidery machines.EmbroideryUpstairs in the shop, there’s a workshop where monogramming of materials takes place.“We’re the biggest embroidery business in regional NSW,” Matthew said.“It’s a big part of our business - we do a lot of embroidery on work clothes and we get a lot of requests for towels at Christmas.John said his wife Noelene was always interested in embroidery and that was the spark for him to buy a 500kg embroidery machine in 1997 for $34,000.“I had to get the roof lifted off and a crane to bring it in,” he said. “I bought an even bigger six head machine later for $50,000.”Now, Matthew has updated the computer systems that work with the machines.“It’s a timeless industry,” Matthew said.“I love getting orders from people for bespoke embroidery pieces, like tablecloths.“It’s all about you.It’s all about the peopleBoth John and Matthew agree that the connection they make with customers is one of the most rewarding things about being in business.“I like to talk to people,” Matthew said. “I listen to them – people want to be acknowledged.“They walk in and we welcome them and say hello.”John said he has seen generations of families walk through the door.“People come in and say ‘you knew my grandma’,” he said.“I’d even cash personal cheques for people, It’s the simple things in making relationships with customers that make the difference.”Their business sponsors a local football team and donates items to people in need, including towels and vouchers to recently affected bushfire victims. “We are part of this community and Lismore is a better place that we are here,” Matthew said. To celebrate the businesses 30th birthday, they are having a small private celebration this weekend to reflect on the last three decades.One of the things they are both glad to see is that the shop now has air conditioning.Although it’s a bit late for John’s wife Noelene.“Noelene told me she would retire if I didn’t get air-con,” John laughed.

Wood and marquetry master craftsman Geoff Hannah’s new work - Jubilee House - is a like a dolls house on steroids. The roof tiles are jade, the window-sills are jasper, the columns are ebony, the window panes are Brazilian agate and the steps are Tamworth marble.Jubilee House has taken Geoff nearly four years to complete – over half the time it took him to make one of his best known masterpieces – the Hannah Cabinet - which is on display at Lismore Regional Gallery.Geoff’s new work was unveiled at the Regional Gallery last Friday as part of Chesta Drawrz and The Lowboys – an exhibition of fine woodwork by Geoff and his students.As you look at Jubilee House, you’ll see petrified wood, agate and opaline used to bring colour to the piece.When Geoff opens up each of the house windows, inside are small drawers.“It’s good to see it finished,” Geoff said.“I wanted to make it a practical object – it’s a jewellery cabinet.Jubillee House has been a labour of love for Geoff who said “I’ve got a lot of patience”.“Once I start something and make a commitment to it, I don’t let go,” he said.“I’m at it day and night. It’s a big commitment to make something for an exhibition.“You can plan to get the work done in a certain time, but you also need to allow for unforseen problems – like dropping a marble tile and breaking it."The steps and risers of Jubilee House have 35 separate pieces of marble he cut and handcrafted.“If you drop it, it breaks like chalk,” he said. “I curse, then I have to make the piece again.”He uses expensive materials and said Jubilee House will be hard to sell, but he made it because he wanted to.His philosophy in life is ‘if you want to do something, do it – don’t wait until you are 90.“I physically wouldn’t be able to build something like the Hannah Cabinet again,” he said.“Jubilee House itself took four people to lift it and the marble base took four people to lift it too.“I just finished the waxing the marble for the base of Jubilee House on the morning of the exhibition.”Geoff said he keeps a record of the hours he spends making every piece that goes into this work. His projects are getting smaller in size and being made in shorter amounts of time. The Hannah cabinet took him 6.5 years to build and Geoff said the next one will be on an even smaller scale.“I don’t want to have such long commitments to get something finished,” he said.“I don’t intend to retire think and I’ll keep on making things - but I want to get out and about when I need to.”Geoff Hannah's Jubliee House.The sparkThe idea for Geoff’s Jubilee House started as an idea for a high-end box.“I live in Jubilee Street, so that’s why it’s called Jubilee House,” he said.“It took me ten days to draw the plan for the design.” Every material in his piece was carefully selected.“I always think of the colours when I’m building – they all have to work together or it looks too busy and flamboyant.“My wife Rhonda helps me when I’m looking at colours, but it’s always my decision in the end.”The house is made from two types of mahogany - Brazilian and Sapele.“The woods have different grains and colours and work well together,” Geoff said.“I got slate to make the roof with at first, but the colour wasn’t right – it looked too bushy - so I got jade instead, it’s a high tensile material and the colour was right."When Geoff started cutting and shaping the pieces of jade for the roof tiles, he used a 21kg block of jade. Out of that, he got less than four kilos of workable jade pieces.“You need to allow for losing stone when you cut through it.“I made 1200 tiles, but I ended up with 720 tiles that were useable.”Geoff said the black obsidian he used is a strong material and is used in surgery, because it’s so sharp.“I’ve been cut by it a few times while I’m working,” he laughed.Every piece in the work has been put together so that if one piece breaks, it can be replaced.Geoff records how much time he spends on every activity involved in making the piece.“Then I know how much work went into it," he said.“There’s 700 hours in stone work in Jubilee House.”HistoryGeoff grew up near Busbys Flat in Richmond Valley.“I was born in the bush and my family lived next to a saw mill, where my father was a sleeper cutter,” he said.“I started working with wood when I was six years old and learned from my father. “I’d get the mill offcuts and work with them.“I used to watch my father cut trees and mill them into sleepers.“Mum would help him and she’d wear a dress when she was working – that’s what they did in those days.”Geoff’s family moved to Lismore in 1963 when he was 14 years old and Geoff started an apprenticeship in 1964 as a cabinet maker with Brown and Jolly.In 1973, he started his own furniture making business in Lismore, which he’s been doing ever since. In 1980, he received the Churchill Fellowship to research fine furniture, which involved studying examples at the Louvre, in Paris.He went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where he was inspired by the fine craftsmanship he saw in woodcraft there.He remembers the first time he was able to open a bureau and see inside the drawers and how they were constructed.“If you can see how someone has made something, you can start to get ideas," he said.The practical objects he makes are considered as art by many people – with much planning and thought put into them.Geoff’s cabinetsGeoff has made a few cabinets in his life.The first cabinet he made was the Bicentenary cabinet, which was on display at the Sydney Opera House.It’s now in his own collection and Geoff said it’s something he’s thinking about selling.“It’s too hard to divide up between my two children when I pass away,” he said.He them made the Yaralumla Cabinet, then the Australian Cabinet - which is now in Antwerp, in Belgium.“When I sold the Australian cabinet, it financed making the Hannah Cabinet,” Geoff said.The Hannah cabinet is made from 34 types of timber as well as ebony, gold, tortoise shell, abalone, mother-of-pearl, jasper, agate, tiger eye, malachite, lapis lazuli and ruby.Geoff’s Hannah Cabinet has received national attention with an ongoing campaign to raise enough money to buy the million dollar cabinet and keep it at Lismore Regional Gallery.(find out more at www.hannahcabinet.com). Geoff Hannah, Gaela Hurford and Brian Henry with the world famous Hannah Cabinet.CommitmentGeoff is man of commitment, discipline and passion.He was awarded the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2018 for service to the visual arts through the production of furniture and marquetry. He was also awarded the title of Honorary Fellow of the Southern Cross University in 2009. As well as being a gifted master craftsman, Geoff is a renowned teacher of his craft since 1981, having taught aspiring woodworkers from Longreach to Launceston and Muckadilla to Perth. He teaches furniture making and polishing at the University of Southern Queensland He also continues to conduct classes in Lismore.TeachingHis current exhibition Chesta Drawz and the LowBoys at Lismore Regional Gallery features works from his local students, some of which have been working with him for 18 years.“My students tend to stay with me so there’s not many places in my classes for new students – I only take on six students at a time,” Geoff said.“My youngest student is 15 years old. “I love teaching people my craft and seeing my students go home happy.“They make good quality pieces of furniture and objects that are made in ways that can always be mended if something wears down – like using shellac on the wood which can be re-done at any time.”Geoff and some of his students.Current exhibitionChesta Drawz and the LowBoys - an exhibition of fine woodwork by Geoff Hannah and his students will be on display until December 1 at Lismore Regional Gallery.There are free daily tours at 11am and also tours of the Hannah cabinet at 11.45am every day.  The exhibition features more than 60 beautiful works by 26 of Geoff’s students. The works include intricate boxes, sideboards, dressers, mirrors, tables and two guitars.The pieces are made of every imaginable wood including Red Cedar, Walnut, Ebony and Brazilian Mahogany. Some works are adorned with beautiful marquetry of king parrot, horses, grass trees, plants and street art or simply the elegant lustre, grain and colour of the various woods.  Opportunity for local High Schools: Geoff Hannah studio visitMaster craftsman Geoff Hannah & Lismore Regional Gallery are offering 4 high schools from the Northern Rivers Region the amazing opportunity to visit Geoff Hannah's Lismore based workshop and a free tour of Chesta Drawz and the LowBoys.High School visits to Geoff's workshop will be available on Thursday afternoons during the exhibition period from Thurs 24 Oct 2019 - 28 November 2019.If you are interested, contact Claudie Frock by email at [email protected]

From boy scout to welder, electrician, builder, motorbike rider and a helper of others - Lismore Men and Community Shed president Bob Grieg has always been handy. He’s battled depression and come through the other side, and now he uses his skills and experience to mentor and help others.Under his watchful eye, the Lismore Men & Community Shed is currently moving to a new location - after being located on Lismore Showgrounds for the past three years. After a lot of paperwork and lobbying, Bob said the new location at Norco Lane in South Lismore is theirs. But that’s just the beginning. The shed needs help - and Bob is asking the wider community to pitch in.Lismore Men's Shed Show and Shine this Sunday, October 13: Vintage vehicles and rockabilly music star at Men's Shed fundraiser“Without the Men’s Shed, I would’ve committed suicide,” Bob said. About four years ago, Bob moved to Lismore for love.At the time, he was an avid motorbike fan and rode a Honda Shadow.“I’m still a member of the Shadow Riders of Australia,” he said. “But I stopped riding when I pranged my bike in a road accident in 2017 and had the bike’s driving light go through my chest,” he said.“I’m still recovering from it. “My bike was written off and my body was broken. “My right lung was totally squashed and I couldn’t breathe properly.“I didn’t have a job, I didn’t have anything. Bob Grieg outside the new Men's Shed in Norco Lane.Suicide“Without the Men’s Shed, I would’ve committed suicide.“I hated what had become of my life.“Someone suggested to me that I come to the Men’s Shed and that’s where I met George – the formed Men’s Shed president.“He sat down with me and we had a cup of tea and talked. “I liked how he was non-judgemental.”“Originally, the Men’s Shed movement started because men don’t talk about their problems at all. They get told to ‘toughen up’.“I felt I had a lot to give as a teacher and mentor,” he said.Bob said the first day he was at the shed, he saw someone using a jigsaw and “knew they needed help”.Now, he’s taken on the role as Men’s Shed president and said trying to keep things on track “is the hardest job of my life”.Men's Shed volunteers and committee members. Front row: president Bob Grieg, Greg Watson and vice president Ian Bottrell. Back row: secretary D'Wayne Russell and publicity officer Ernie Pagotto.Lean on me“Men’s Shed policy is to help - you can lean on me,” he said.“I’ve got troubles myself, but if you have a problem, my shoulders are there to carry you.“Members can come and talk about things here at the shed. A lot of blokes just want to talk and drink coffee.“One guy is 84 and he comes on jobs and helps us and we have an 81 year old engineer and we help him into helping other people.”The Lismore Men and Community Shed is a bit different from other Men’s sheds. It’s inclusive of everyone, and has women members too, including a female secretary on the committee.“Everybody has something to give,” Bob said.“We have one guy who comes in a wheelchair – he’s happy and laughs at everything and keeps the mood up. “He used to come to the shed until we had to close it because we were moving to new premises at Norco Lane. “We didn’t want to leave the showgrounds site, but it’s not suitable for us.“The new shed is too small, but we’re renovating it to try to fit all of our equipment in.“I’m upset we had to close the shed for safety reasons to do the move.Inside the new Men's Shed.New premises“It’s a construction site at the moment.“We’re constructing racking and work benches out of palettes and people can’t get in and use the facilities at the moment.”Bob said the old ganger's shed on Norco Lane in South Lismore, next to the Norco factory, was given to the Men’s Shed by the NSW Minister for Transport.“We said ‘yes please’, but didn’t realise we couldn’t extend the shed or build on the ground because it was in flood zone,” he said.“It’s on crown land and we paid $2 up front for two years peppercorn rent. “We’re still trying to get the council zoning of the land changed from heavy to light industrial so we can prepare a development application.“There’s also the problem of development application fees and working out how we can build something off the ground so we can have enough space to make the shed useable.“We desperately need advice from an architect or engineer about what sort of structure we can design that will fit with council’s regulations. “It needs to be high enough off the ground to be out of flood.“Ideally we’d like to move into the shed on nearby Engine Street – it would be ideal for us.“But it’s owned by the railways and they have it up for sale – it’s out of our reach.”Inside the new shed before the volunteers began working on it.Donations and the new shedThe volunteers at the new shed have already replaced the rotted-out roof and put a concrete floor at the entrance – thanks to donations from local businesses of concrete, roofing material from Metroll and paint and palettes from AJ Magnay.Now they are repairing walls with palette racking to make benches for working work on, but it’s a quarter of the size of the old shed. “We plan to make it bigger maybe by going up,” he said.“We can put a concrete slab down but we’re not allowed to build on it – so we thought what if we have posts with a mezzanine floor - like an airport with a shed on top?“Fair Dinkum Sheds can’t give us a quote to do it because no-one has done it before.“If we can get an approved plan to go up, that would be great.“We had a laptop computer donated by Officeworks here too, but somebody stole it. “We’ve had a lot of stuff go missing from here and been broken into a couple of times.”Industrious childhoodBob’s handiness with tools and a desire to help people started when he was a very small boy.“I learned to weld when I was five years old,” he said.Bob’s father was a manufacturing engineer when he was growing up in Dubbo and the family lived in the engineer’s cottage on the grounds of the geriatric hospital.“I guess I followed in the footsteps of my father.“When I was five, I did all the welding and build a monstrous bid cage, with the help of my father.“It was 25 feet long and high and we used to keep parrots and other birds in it.“It was still there the last time I went back to Dubbo to see it.Bob said as a boy Scout, he was always industrious. “During bob-a-job week, I earned the most money ever earned by a boy scout in the whole of Australia,” he said.“I always wanted to go and do something. I liked working hard and helping people.”His desire to help others is still as strong as ever. These days, Bob spends most of his time at the Lismore Men’s Shed, helping people build things, and talking to people who drop into the shed.Bob’s handiness moved from welding into electrics. He signed up as an apprentice electrician on the railways for three years, before quitting when he realised it would be another four years of study if he wanted an official qualification.“So I travelled Australia and moved to Parkes and became a second class welder,” he said. “I met my wife there and had three kids before we moved to Dubbo and I worked as an automotive air conditioning technician.“Then we moved to Brisbane and did the same sort of work, where from scratch I built brackets to hold the compressor onto a Porsche.”From there, he worked in an abbatoir as a tradesman assisting in manufacturing.“They needed a truck driver so I got my truck driving licence and drove all over Australia.”Volunteers love to have a laugh and joke around with each other at the Men's Shed.Future visionLismore Men’s Shed needs help creating a vision for the future.“I’m hoping for the best,” Bob said.“We really need help to look for alternative visions to help us establish a good men’s shed, but we lack money and the people to help us do it.“At the moment, we have about 50 members, but only ten of them are active and capable of doing things.“The more people that get involved, the better it will be.“We are one of the only Men’s Sheds in Australia that doesn’t get support from our local council.“Casino Men’s Shed got thousands of dollars to put up a shed at Casino Showground. “We need something better.“We’ve been offered a small grant from the Australian Men’s Shed Association, but we need more help. “We’ve got to keep going.”Helping communityVolunteers at the shed regularly fundraise by doing Bunnings Sausage Sizzles, going to people's places and putting flat packs together, as well as home maintenance and organising car Shows like the Show and Shine on today at Tullera Hall. Read more: Vintage vehicles and rockabilly music star at Men's Shed fundraiser"If you have any jobs that need to be done, just let us know," Bob said."We charge $25 to put together flat pack furniture - and we can build anything for you, from kitchens to benches, dolls houses, wheelbarrows and more."We work a lot cheaper than your regular tradies - give us a call."Bob is looking for new members to join the shed, or any help they can get.The Lismore Men & Community Shed is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10am until 2pm. To contact the Men’s Shed, visit the Facebook page Lismore Men & Community Shed, or phone Bob on 0404 860 504.