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Mentoring this gorgeous girl has been an immensely rewarding experience. Emily and I met in 2016 when I saw an ad in our school newsletter for Raise, a Foundation calling for volunteers to mentor young mums. We worked through a two-year program together. Now, 4 years later, we are still very close friends. I’ve been to all four of Emily’s daughter Kaydence’s Birthday celebrations. I felt extremely privileged to attend Emily and Chris’s wedding and super excited last year to welcome the arrival of their baby boy Raidon. We also love to catch up over a curry.

I’m so incredibly proud of Emily. She and her husband Chris are saving for a house, they’ve given up smoking, she’s studying and working part-time, they have two delightful children and they help out in their community.

I’ve always thought of Emily as a friend rather than a mentee. We have both grown from the experience and supported each other. For the first Humans in Geelong Expo in 2017 I was petrified no-one would turn up. I nervously talked to Emily before the event and she very calmly told me, ‘of course they will turn up Jacqui’. She, Chris and baby Kaydence, were the first through the door and have supported it yearly. Boy, did that help calm my nerves.

Continue reading “Mentoring Emily.” →

How does the boy who started out selling ice-creams at Village Geelong end up becoming an award-winning film maker, who has created, produced, directed and stared in feature films, TV series and stunt shows? Here is Rob Baard’s story.

Rob grew up in Norlane and went straight from school to a Village Cinema traineeship in 1998, where he trained in all areas. Village seemed a good fit because, even from a young age, he’d always been into film, writing scripts, making costumes and making short films. His enthusiasm, determination and dedication at Village, led him to become cinema manager by 2000.

During his time at Village Rob completed his first feature film and won many awards, including cinema marketing to which in 2007 he left Village to continue cinema marketing from home  in order to focus on film making in the form of the ‘Ninjaverse’ his own creative film and licensing franchise, www.theninjamovies.com  https://www.facebook.com/theninjauniverse/

Continue reading “Ninjaverse, Rob Baard.” →

Introduction:

Hi! I’m Audrey and today I’ll be talking about Walter Wasylewski. He is my grandpa and I call him Grumpy!

I love him SO much!!

Personality

He is shockingly funny, jolly, and silly. He can be grumpy, and when he is grumpy, he is boiling mad! After all, his name is Grumpy, right?

Continue reading “Grumpy, Walter Wasylewski.” →

The colourful and inclusive, Geelong Rainbow Festival, is back for its third and biggest year ever, running for six days, from today, 4th until Sunday 9th February, 2020. Now a much-loved fixture of Geelong’s booming cultural calendar, Geelong Rainbow Festival continues to unite and celebrate the growing diversity of the region’s LGBTIQ+ community and allies, whilst also boosting Geelong’s national and international standing as a progressive, inclusive and creative place to live, work and play.

Organisers at Geelong Rainbow Inc. are looking forward to another positive festival, with sixteen ticketed and free events being offered across multiple locations, including The Geelong Rainbow Pride March, 10.30am this Sunday from Johnstone Park. All are welcome to join in to show their support. This leads in to the Fair Day, also taking place in Johnstone Park this Sunday. All welcome.

Continue reading “Geelong Rainbow Festival, 2020.” →

Seven-year-old Holly is not only a member of Geelong Beekeeping Club but she is also part of Transition Street Newtown for kids. She has a love for gardening, making teas and garden science projects. She wants to see little people taking an interest in gardening and recycling. “They can recycle their toys and clothes for use in the garden to make wonderful outdoor play items.”

Holly has appeared on Vasili’s Garden Show on Channel 7two. She spoke with her mother about ‘Growing Food! Skills for Children and Adults’ at The Eastern Hub, Geelong on 19 January where she received an overwhelming response. Considering she is only seven she is a confident speaker in front of a large audience of adults. She’ll be speaking once a month in a Transitions Street Newtown group to encourage children to garden and enjoy all that nature has to offer that commenced on 26 Jan 2020 for a group of up to 8 people.

Continue reading “Holly.” →

I know, she isn’t a Human, but isn’t she cute! Meet Penny, she’s Geelong’s first Story Dog. She listens to children read. She doesn’t laugh at them or correct them. She’s non-judgmental. But the facts show she is helping children succeed. It’s fun for the children, their focus improves, their confidence soars and so do their reading skills.

Story Dogs, a non-profit, was founded by two Mums, Janine Sigley and Leah Sheldon and in 2009 in Murwillumbah, NSW. www.storydogs.org.au The mission is to ‘make reading fun for children, so they become confident, lifelong readers.’

This highly successful program is finally coming to Geelong. Story Dogs are on the lookout for Primary Schools that would like to participate. There is no cost to the school and no cost to the students as sponsors fit the bill.

Continue reading “Penny the Story Dog.” →

From small ideas great things grow. After getting married and starting her family, Primary School teacher, Del Renton would spend hours searching various websites, and accessing various Facebook pages to try to find activities around Geelong that would be child-friendly and be of interest to her family and friends.  Five years ago, this busy ‘new mum’ had a brilliant idea to put all of this information in one easy to find place so others could also look at things being posted and not have to spend hours searching various websites.  As we know, the days of reading a newspaper and circling various events has now been surpassed by social media.  With phones in our hands and most of us on Facebook, WhatToDo Geelong was born. https://www.whattodogeelong.com.au/

 

Creating a Facebook page which collects information pertaining to our beautiful region was envisaged by Del, making initial contact with businesses and events coordinators around Geelong, to ask if she could share their information on a Facebook page.  Soon ‘word of mouth’ took over and those same businesses and events coordinators were contacting her.

Continue reading “What to do Geelong, Del.” →

Do you love an inspiring story? Don’t miss ‘They cannot take the Sky’, a multimedia installation that presents the stories of people with lived experience of seeking asylum. The stories are at times shocking, at times hilarious, extraordinary and devastating. ‘They cannot take the Sky’ is showing at the Eastern Hub’, Rachinger Gallery until January 31^st. The gallery is open 9am – 5pm weekdays and there is no cost.

The men and women featured in this exhibition are diverse and individual, their experiences unique and often surprising. You can listen to voices that are so often absent from public discussion. You’ll hear about the reasons people flee their homes, their perilous journeys in search of safety, and the banality of daily life in detention.

You can listen to audio stories and view videos on a range of screens. Photographic portraits accompany the show. This is a profoundly moving exhibition that shines a light on the lives of people willing to share their own individual stories in spite of the risks of retribution both here and overseas.

Behind the Wire, an oral history project documenting stories from detention, developed the exhibition in collaboration with Victoria’s Immigration Museum. From Geelong the exhibition travels to Bendigo, Shepparton and on to Ballarat.

Don’t miss this moving, unique collaboration between Behind the Wire and Road to Refuge.

Photo: supplied

We are SO excited to announce that we have more Humans in Geelong books available. The first lot where so popular, they’ve all gone. They went free to schools, libraries and community groups thanks to the State Government Grant ‘Pick my Project’ and our auspice Geelong Sustainability . Please DM or email humansingeelong@gmail.com if you are interested in getting your hands on some of these colourful, inspiring, coffee table books that are full of ‘good news’ stories of our amazing and diverse locals.

We’d like to thank our friends at Snap Geelong for making this reprint possible. Thanks to Villawood Properties for generously helping with storage and the guys at CBD movers.

The books will also be available at the Pako Festa and when we present at Geelong Design Week . Pop Tuesday March 24^th 7.30-8.30pm in the diary. Our Geelong Design Week talk is presented in Partnership with Geelong Regional Library Corporation at the Dome, The High Ground, Wurdi Youang, Level 5, Geelong Library & Heritage Centre. Tickets will be available via Eventbrite soon.

Continue reading “Humans in Geelong Books.” →

Geelong’s Chris Hall has a goal – to raise as much money for motor neurone disease (MND) as possible.  And in just under four years of fundraising, Chris has ticked over $30,000 to support research towards finding a cure for the disease. His quest began after work colleague Jenny Simko, a nurse at Barwon Health, was diagnosed with MND. She passed away 14 months later in 2015.

“Until then I didn’t know what MND was. I read up on it and found there was no treatment and no cure.”

Chris, who is confined to a wheelchair through Spina Bifida thought: “How can I raise money and help raise awareness of this disease?”

“There are now all sorts of treatments and preventions now for Spina Bifida but learning that there is no cure for the disease really got to me.”

Chris decided he could raise awareness for his charity work via ‘Wheel4MND’ – an initiative where he is wheeling 50km each month. This led to people wanting to sponsor his wheeling.

Continue reading “Chris Hall, Wheel 4 MND.” →