new mums and grand mums

Today I joined with women (and some men) from near and far to participate in the Birth Week festival in Kallista. Birth Week is a five day festival jam packed with speakers covering all manner of subjects relating to birth and parenting.
Birth Week is an opportunity to come together with other mothers, partners, pregnant women, support persons, doulas and midwives to share, explore, discover and celebrate birth.

I am pleased to support Birth Week, it gives families and families to be a great opportunity to explore a whole range of opportunities in what is one of the most important events of their lives.

Later in the day I had the great pleasure of speaking to the Belgrave branch of the Country Women’s Association. A small but dedicated group of women committed to making life better for our community.

The ladies were keen to hear about how the Shire supports our older residents and the volunteering opportunities in the Shire.






The Shire has a Positive Aging Strategy, originally endorsed in 2006. It is through this strategy that we support our older residents by providing a whole range of different services, the key objectives include:
- Promoting a positive attitude towards ageing
- Promoting active participation by older residents in all spheres of community life
- Supporting older residents to age well in their communities, by providing access to health services, physical activities and other services
- Providing lifelong learning opportunities
- Promoting senior-friendly environments, including safe and accessible streetscapes and buildings in our community

It was also a great opportunity to highlight a new initiative by the shire, Volunteer Xchange. Volunteer Xchange has been set up as a free service to connect community groups and their one off or short term projects with volunteers who would like to share their passion, skills and talents.

Community Groups can register their project with Volunteer Xchange to get their message out there that they need help. Keen and interested volunteers can register their interest and hey presto project and volunteers are matched and its all systems go!

Volunteering is very rewarding and helps to bond and strengthen our community. The range of volunteering opportunities and experiences is vast and Volunteer Xchange will provide a central point to help match you with your passion.

As part of my afternoon at the CWA I had the task of judging best bloom, best leaf and best memorabilia, it was a delightful way to spend my afternoon and I found the energy, commitment and compassion shown by the ladies inspiring.