Hi I’m Hudson, a Year 6 student from Bellbrae Primary School.
I believe that there are lots of people out in the community trying to make it a better place for everyone to live, and I feel Liz Pattison, the Surf Coast Shire’s Deputy Mayor, is one of them.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Liz and sat down with her in her home in Jan Juc. During the weeks prior to the interview, I researched some information about Liz and one of things I found out, was that she loves a good coffee. Liz didn’t know I held this piece of information and I had a hunch that when I interviewed her, she would be having a coffee……….and I was right.
My ice breaker question was:
“What is a funny moment you can recall from your life?”
Liz replied:
“I was driving across town with my Dad, in a full hooded bee suit in case any rogue angry bees got out of the hive while we were moving our beehive. We looked like astronauts or Martians and we had a good laugh driving down the road. We were newbies to bee husbandry. As we moved the hive containing 50,000 bees, that was all strapped up, it slipped off the trolley and came apart. Thousands of bees started to escape the small entrance. They were like a roaring tiger! So angry and loud. They set their sights on a small gap in my bee suit around my ankle and gave me many nasty bee stings. Bees sense fear.”
Liz was very happy when she won her term as Deputy Mayor in 2020 (and went on to win a term as Mayor in 2022). She was working as an engineer before she was elected and was keen to put her profession into use for the better of the community. One of the things Liz really likes about her job, is talking to people and working out good ways to do things. Here, she found her engineering skills to be valuable, which helped her create a bigger picture about what was best in the long term for our Surf Coast community.
When asked about one of her quotes,
“I like to think outside the box” she replied, “Instead of looking at what’s the problem from a to b, let’s look at all the other things around it that you can think about to make a better solution”.
Liz is passionate about the Surf Coast, and one of her missions is to lead our community towards a sustainable future. This includes addressing the bigger issues of Climate Change, Environmental Leadership and Mental Health. It is great to know that we have a caring Deputy Mayor (now Mayor) who is prepared to problem solve and not take the easy route.
Story: Hudson Reynolds. Photo supplied.
HuG 