Mayoral Matters | May 2, 2025
Published on 02 May 2025
The Easter weekend, while incredibly busy, was exceptional. It was great to see so much activity in our towns, with plenty of locals out and about supporting the many events throughout Northern Grampians Shire.
The weather was perfect and really helped to showcase why our shire is the place to be at Easter.
On Thursday last week I attended my first meeting of the Local Government Mayoral Advisory Panel.
The panel provides high-level advice to the State Government on key issues affecting councils statewide. This year’s focus will be on governance and new terms for councillors.
It is an honour to be chosen to be on this panel and I really enjoyed having frank and high-level conversations on matters that impact Local Government.
Enabling state and local governments to work together in this type of forum will help to create positive changes in the sector, so that together we can make decisions that better serve our communities.
On another positive note, it is good to see farmers in our district flat-out sowing legumes and canola, following the welcome and long-awaited rain that we've had in the past week. Hopefully we will have more rain to follow.
There were many Anzac Day services in our shire and all were well-attended this year.
I had an early start at the dawn service in Stawell, followed by the gunfire breakfast cooked by Stawell Tennis Club. The tennis club crew volunteers its time every year to cook yummy bacon and eggs for the crowd.
After that, I headed off to a service at Great Western and back to Stawell for an 11am service.
Lest We Forget.
Wednesday this week was an exciting day as we celebrated the official opening of the new kindergarten in St Arnaud, at the primary school site.
We are thankful to all those who have helped make this project a reality, and to all the people who continue to support the growth and development of our community.
Today, I will be attending the Grampians Wimmera Mallee Tourism Bushfire Recovery Forum at Halls Gap.
It will be a jam-packed afternoon listening to some interesting guest speakers, and I’m looking forward to it.
We will finish with an evening of networking, leading into the Grampians Grape Escape Feel Good Friday event.
Tomorrow, I will attend the Grampians Grape Escape at Halls Gap, which is always a wonderful event.
This year’s escape features two celebrity chefs, Dani Venn on Saturday and Justine Schofield on Sunday.
With the weather forecast looking good for the weekend, what better way to spend it than relaxing and chatting with friends while enjoying good food, wine and music?