Tuesday 31 August 2021 Mayor Cr Chris Meddows-Taylor

Published on 31 August 2021

Another lockdown which none of us wanted but we know what we need to do - get vaccinated. Vaccination is our only way out of this.

It was so good to read that our local aged care facilities have one of the highest vaccination rates in the state (Advertiser 27 August) especially when we know the devastation that Covid has caused in other aged care settings. Having been a past Board member and Vice President of Havilah this doesn’t surprise me, as I know how brilliantly that organisation is run and special congratulations to the legendary CEO Barbara Duffin for her role in this. Wouldn’t it be great if as a community we can match those vaccination results and have the highest rate of vaccinations within the state?

It was thrilling that before lockdown we were able to hold a citizenship ceremony in the Maryborough Resource Centre central gallery which I think is a very beautiful place within our shire and so suited to that very happy occasion.

I was blown away at the breadth of countries our nine candidates hailed from - UK, Cambodia, China, UK, New Zealand and Vietnam. Each of our new citizens bring with them different and exciting stories of different countries, cultures and traditions. As a community we warmly welcome them into their new status as Australian citizens. We hope they will be immensely happy here, but we know as a community we will be the richer from the exciting diversity they bring to us.