5 April, 2023 - Cr Anna De Villiers - The Carisbrook Mercury
Published on 05 April 2023
What an amazing summer we have had – all of three weeks!! I feel as though I have never had the opportunity to put away my winter clothes. The European deciduous trees are already dressed in their autumn colours and a beautiful sight to behold. I must confess, I am not ready for winter yet. Hopefully we will still have a few days of summer before winter takes a hold.
I attended two functions hosted by the CFA. The first one was the awards evening of the Carisbrook CFA and it was wonderful to see all these brave and wonderful people spending a social evening together. There was a National Emergency Medal Presentation in Bendigo on Saturday afternoon, awarding medals to CFA members who were involved in the Victorian Bushfires 2019/20. Two Carisbrook CFA members were awarded this medal. Congratulations to the recipients of awards.
The sporting season has kicked off and there is a lot of activity reported on Facebook, in the Maryborough Advertiser and in our very own Carisbrook Mercury. A very exciting $4million dollar project is starting to take shape at the Carisbrook Rec Reserve. I was invited for a walk through recently and was blown away by the absolute functionality but also beautiful, light and airy spaces created for sportswomen and men. I am sure the Carisbrook Rec Reserve members cannot wait to start using the new facilities. This project is a demonstration of what can be achieved when volunteers and the Council join forces and work together in partnership, turning a vision into reality.
Both before and after the flood in October 2022, a recurring topic of conversation was, how do we manage our vulnerable residents. The Shire has a vulnerable persons’ list, but it is not what one would like to believe or think. The list is not a comprehensive list of vulnerable people in the Shire. Most importantly, because of all the privacy laws, the list is not available to anybody but a few people. I have enrolled at the Sydney University to do a course called P-CEP, which was incredibly enlightening. The P-CEP course is about equipping every resident with the knowledge to develop a personal emergency management plan. The program is still developing, and the expectation is, that an emergency group will take responsibility for rolling out the program within communities. It is free to enrol for this training. Training is online and does not require any assignments or exams. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me for more information. It can be completed over the course of two months.