Hepburn Springs Village is coming together to support the Cancer Council with a community morning tea on Sunday, June 21 from 9.30am to 11.30am.
The event will be hosted at the Old Macaroni Factory, with guests gathering in the H.D.C. Longroom and Lucini’s Lounge. Adding to the community spirit, The Surly Goat, Lotte, Cello, Shizuka Ryokan, Hepburn General Store and F&CK are generously donating cakes and treats for the occasion. Tickets available via Trybooking. Link: www.oldmacaronifactory.com.au Proceeds to the Cancer Council.

Child and Family Services Ballarat (Cafs) is inviting community members from across the Central Highlands region to help shape services for children, young people and families by joining its Community Advisory Committee.
The group plays an important role in Cafs’ governance by providing feedback, insights and community perspectives to help strengthen services, programs and organisational direction. Cafs CEO Wendy Sturgess said the group played a key role in ensuring the organisation continues to reflect and respond to the communities it serves.

Magpies are on top after Australians counted a record-breaking five million birds in one week during BirdLife Australia’s Aussie Bird Count.

The figures include more than five million birds counted, 64,000 participants submitted a combined 153,000 checklists and 621 different species observed. Held in October last year, 64,000 Australians took part in the count. The Australian magpie swooped into top spot as the bird Australia sees the most, followed by: Rainbow Lorikeet; Noisy Miner; Sulphur-crested Cockatoo; Magpie-lark; Galah; Red Wattlebird; Crested Pigeon; Welcome Swallow; and Common Myna.

Communities across Australia will help create vital habitat for bees and other pollinators thanks to the Trees for Bees Community Tree grants.

Now in its fourth year, the Trees for Bees Community Tree Grants program provides grants of up to $500 to schools, clubs and community groups to plant pollinator-friendly trees and shrubs in their local area. Applications close on Monday, July 20. Link: www. wheenbeefoundation.org.au/communitytreegrants

The first ever Fever-Tree Gin & Tonic Awards saw the Best in Show G&T pairing awarded to Daylesford Spirit’s Miner’s Gin & Fever-Tree Mediterranean Light Tonic.

In addition to taking home the cup, the winners will also enjoy a five-night break away to enjoy a luxury holiday for two in Singapore’s historic Raffles Hotel and visit the Long Bar where the Singapore Sling was born and search out the history and delights of this great destination.

Hepburn Shire Council has decided to temporarily close a pedestrian bridge on the Domino Trail in Trentham, after independent advice confirmed the structure is unsafe for use.
The bridge crosses over Stony Creek, just to the west of Station Street and is a short distance from the historic Trentham Railway Station. Users can detour via Victoria Street and signage is being put in place.

Natasha Morgan was approached last year by Murdoch Books and this year, The Productive Garden Companion, the book she had hoped to find her entire life, was created. She chatted to Kyle Barnes.

Kyle: How did it all come about?
Natasha: They had seen one of my posts on Instagram and out of the blue one day, I got this email that said, I’ve long thought about you for a book. The publisher had used Spargo Creek as a location for a couple of book shoots so I was in the periphery. Anyway, (the email) was all about my productive garden workshop. She asked if could write about how gardens are beautiful and abundant, but they’re also about being inhabited. So I said yes, I could do a book.

Kyle: Had you been asked before?
Natasha: Yes, a lot of people had said to me in the past I should write a book. I had worked as a professional landscape architect for many years at a super-high level on projects like the Australian Garden at the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens for a long time. And I’d done Spargo Creek with Oak and Monkey Puzzle. And now this one at Daylesford, which is all about re-imagining everything that I could have done at Oak and Monkey Puzzle, but on a residential block. It felt like a good time for me.

Kyle: What did you want this to be about?
Natasha: I really wanted this book to be something that I couldn’t find. A lot of the books out there in the gardening and design world are full of information but they’re not terribly inspiring. They’re often really daggy books, a bit dense on information. And then the books that are super inspiring, the design books, full of beautiful imagery, are lacking substance. I’ve been gardening since I was a kid, but I’m also a landscape architect. So I thought how can I bring those two together and use the two properties as a case study? The book is all about productive gardens and what a productive garden means to me.

Kyle: What does that mean to you?
Natasha: Everything from our traditional sense of fruit, veg, herbs…but also for me, it’s flowers, medicinals and then this broader idea of what productive means which is healing and mental health and mindfulness. That’s what my gardens give me and why I always return to them. Also it’s about biodiversity and sustainability and resilience. Even during the course of the book, my definition of productive has evolved.

Kyle: And you help people find their way?
Natasha: Yes, it’s also got all of those high-level design skills, teaching people how to see the opportunities and also to unpack the way in which they want to inhabit their gardens and how they design for that. It’s has 24 contributors from around the world who are exceptional people in their own right. People like Charles Dowding in the UK and the story of a beautiful woman in Ukraine who is gardening in a war zone and she’s literally saving the seeds from her fourth-generation garden and selling them around the world to support them to survive the war. A productive garden that’s beautiful is not always a luxury because as human beings, you know, beauty is a necessity.

Kyle: It sounds very inspiring.
Natasha: It’s also a bit of a call to action. The end of the book finishes with a call to action to consider what would happen if everybody just grew one thing. If everybody learned to grow one thing and we swapped and traded and shared, or whether you just had the incredible contentment of knowing that you could grow one thing that you couldn’t grow before, what would that world be like?

Kyle: It’s an amazing story. A life passion?
Natasha: Yes. I learned gardening as a kid just by sticking my hands in the soil. No one told me how to do it. I was just curious and I learned by doing it that way. And I think that is what the book encourages people to do as well, just give things a go. Even if you start with one seed or one square metre of garden or a pot on a balcony, everything that’s in the book applies to any scale and any location. That was my ambition from the outset, to make sure that it was those fundamental things about growing – and how growing has supported a way of life for me too.

Pre-order The Productive Garden Companion at www.geni.us/productivegarden Image: Emily Weaving

Hepburn Shire Council awarded three contracts at its May meeting.

The first was for kerbside recycling processing to Cleanaway for a two-year term. This followed a public tender process held in February and March 2026.
The second was for the design development stage of the Daylesford Town Hall upgrade project to Lovell Chen, a Melbourne-based architecture company, for $90,620 for the schematic design being progressed to detail designs and improvements and new works to the Daylesford Town Hall/Senior Citizens’ Building.
The third was for works in Cambridge and Victoria streets in Creswick to Butler Excavations for $523,810. The project will deliver better pedestrian pathways and crossings, more organised and formalised parking, and other upgrades to enhance safety, accessibility, and the overall streetscape.

Hepburn Shire Council has secured $2.22 million of state government funding for six projects around the shire. The council is contributing $321,000 across all the projects.

The funding comes from the government’s Safe Local Roads and Streets Program which provides funding to support infrastructure upgrades that reduce road trauma and improve safety outcomes.
The projects are: Victoria and Cambridge streets, Creswick; Pearsons Road and James Lane intersection, Fern Hill; Ligar Street, Clunes; Stanbridge Street, Daylesford (Stage 1 and Stage 2); Bath Street, Trentham; and Central Springs Road, Daylesford.
The six projects are at different stages of delivery and approval from the funding agency, with construction anticipated to be completed by end October 2026.

If state and federal governments continue to ignore the needs and wants of Hepburn Shire, council and the local government sector would have no choice but to cut additional services and operations in future budgets.

This is the warning from Hepburn Shire Council’s Mayor Cr Tony Clark after the draft budget was put on public exhibition last week.
Cr Clark said the draft budget was disciplined, financially responsible and responded to external cost pressures, and had been developed in a particularly constrained financial environment.
A media release said the draft budget had been developed in line with council’s Financial Vision 2024–2027 and long-term Financial Plan 2025–2035.
“These plans underpin the direction council needs to take to ensure financial sustainability, while safeguarding the services the community relies upon. The Victorian Government rate cap of 2.75 per cent has been applied,” the release said.
“Council has budgeted a minor operating surplus ($511,000), with a positive unrestricted cash position. This is a positive trend and an improvement on prior financial years. Importantly, this operating surplus reflects council’s position of ensuring all our financial reserves are ‘cash backed’ which is positive financial management, and not something that is legislatively required.
“A $10.5 million capital works program is planned, funded by council cash, reserves and grants, with no new borrowings. The program prioritises asset renewal and current project completion over new assets, with $4.83 million allocated to roads. Funding includes $2.8 million from grants and contributions.”
Cr Clark said the budget reflected a careful balance of maintaining financial discipline, responding to rising costs, and continuing to deliver strong outcomes for the community but raised the possibility of further funding cuts.
“Many households are making difficult financial decisions, and we recognise the importance of balancing our financial responsibilities with empathy and understanding.
“If state and federal governments continue to ignore the needs and wants of Hepburn Shire, council and the local government sector will have no choice but to cut additional services and operations in future budgets.
“Staying the course may require difficult choices at times, but it remains the only way for us to ensure a viable and resilient organisation. Despite significant constraints, I am proud of what we continue to achieve. Council consistently delivers high-quality services and meaningful outcomes for our customers, even in a tight financial environment. This is a testament to the dedication, innovation, and commitment of our people, who work hard to provide important services to our community.”
Cr Brian Hood said at the meeting it was important to consider the budget’s historical context.

“The draft budget has been prepared with the backdrop of an ambitious and expansive capex program costing $80m over the past seven years. Over that period cash reserves have declined by $10m and an additional $16m of new borrowings have been taken out. The projections indicate such investment in capex cannot continue.
“Through the 2024 planning work five conclusions were reached: there would be no cash to construct new assets; no cash to make co-contributions to grants; no surplus cash to fund disaster recovery works; cuts to services would be necessary; and a 10 per cent rate variation was needed. That work also identified the need for advocacy to the state government to address matters outside council’s control and the ESC called for more changes when they approved the rate variation.
“These factors each in their own right place serious questions against HSC’s viability. With only 12,000 ratepayers spread across multiple population centres the factors combine to present an extremely challenging position.
“This budget reveals a fresh challenge that again points to risk and unsustainability in the long run. Put simply, cash projections now indicate the amount of cash available for renewal capex works on existing assets cannot keep pace with depreciation. This draft budget should be released tonight. The sooner that genuine consultation and informed discussion takes place the better.”
An online survey is open until Sunday, June 14 at Participate Hepburn and a public hearing will be held Wednesday, June 24. Register via Participate Hepburn.
The council will consider the adoption of the draft 2026/27 Budget at a Special Council Meeting on Tuesday, June 30. Words: Donna Kelly

Max Primmer has been on the Ageing with Pride committee at Hepburn House for many years.

And that evolved into running Ageing Disgracefully where residents could get together to watch a movie, or head to the Amazing Mill Markets for a coffee morning.
That then evolved into Max deciding to also volunteer to chat to residents who perhaps did not have many visitors, for whatever reason.
“Some of the residents don’t come out of their rooms for various reasons, so I go inside and visit them in their rooms and talk to them. And for two or three hours every week I go down there and talk to people, play bingo and just enjoy being there.”
Max said when Ageing Disgracefully got started, just after Covid, quite a few people called to say they were keen to get involved but felt they lacked the confidence to just show up.
“They asked, ‘what if no one says hello or what if no one talks to me?’ So I said we’ll fix that up by you messaging me when you get to the Mill Markets car park, I’ll come out and walk in with you, introduce you and then straight away you’re going to be okay with people. That’s been going on for four years now and there’s new people coming in and joining us all the time now.
“And it’s not just Hepburn House residents at the Mill Markets gatherings. Anyone is welcome to come along. We meet every Thursday at 11am and it’s for everyone. It’s easy to get parking and it’s a great venue.”
Max is also keen to hear from other people who want to spend a few hours chatting with residents at Hepburn House – and the Mill Markets.
“There’s people who would love to have someone come and say hello to them once a week or maybe twice a week, if they have spare time and would like to get involved. The residents have so many stories to tell, they’ve lived so much life, it’s a marvellous thing to get to talk to them and sit with them and discover what their lives have been like.”
Max said if people were keen to get involved they could call Hepburn House and talk to the manager Shelley Simpson.
“Maybe you could take someone for a drive for a cup of coffee once a week? It doesn’t sound a hell of a lot but to those people getting out and just looking at the trees and having a coffee in a different place means so much to them. It’s amazing.
“I’ve always said you give a little bit of yourself but you get 115 per cent back. You’ve made a difference in someone’s life for that half an hour, that hour whatever it might be, you’ve you’ve made someone happy, made a difference in their lives.
“I think sometimes you get a bit more mature and you get into a place like an aged care facility then you feel like you’re not contributing anymore. But they have had interesting lives and done things that nowadays you wouldn’t even think about. It’s fabulous just talking to them. A real privilege.”
Hepburn House: ​​Fostering independence; enriching lives; and offering personalised care in a progressive, highly advanced and compassionate country setting – it’s the next best thing to home. Enquiries: 5348 8100 | www.hepburnhouse.com.au (Advertorial)

Daylesford-based designer and creative practitioner Ty Symonds has been elected as a non-executive director on the board of Craft Victoria, one of Australia’s leading organisations for contemporary craft and making practice.

The appointment was confirmed at Craft Victoria’s AGM last week.
Ty, who lives and works in Daylesford, brings more than two decades of experience in design and creative leadership to the role.
He is best known for his work as general manager of Country Road Home, where he oversaw the creative direction of the Home division during a period of significant growth and cultural influence.
Since departing the corporate sector, he has established Ty Symonds Studio, an independent studio practice in Daylesford, working at the intersection of art and design.
“Daylesford has a remarkable community of makers, artists and creative practitioners,” Ty said.
“Living and working here has fundamentally shaped how I think about making and about what objects mean to the people who use them. I hope to bring some of that thinking to Craft Victoria’s work.”
Craft Victoria, established in 1970, supports makers across Victoria and nationally through exhibitions, retail, mentoring, professional development and public programming.
It champions the cultural and economic value of craft and design as a vital part of Australian creative life.
The appointment adds to Symonds’ existing role as chair of the Swinburne University Industrial Design Advisory Committee. His studio, Ty Symonds Studio, operates from Daylesford and works across art practice, object design and creative advisory.
Links: www.tysymonds.com | www.craft.org.au

Words & image: Contributed

Hepburn Shire Council’s Community Awards have recognised the valuable contribution of community members and volunteers in the shire. The awards were presented during Volunteer Week.

Citizen of the Year went to Daylesford’s Frank Page, Event of the Year went to to art event Radical Fields and was accepted by Glenlyon’s Ryan Kennedy and the Hepburn Together award went to The Biggest Morning Tea and was accepted by Bill and Lois Hetherington.
There were no nominations for Young Citizen of the Year this year.
Mayor Cr Tony Clark congratulated all the award recipients and expressed his gratitude for their profound positive impact on the shire.
“All our award recipients are well deserving and should be proud of what they have achieved. Our volunteers are the heart of our communities, and those who have made exceptional contributions deserve to be recognised. Volunteers are the heart and glue of our community and Hepburn Shire’s punches above its weight.”
Frank Page has contributed to the cultural, environmental and civic life of Daylesford for more than four decades.
A Vietnam veteran, heritage advocate and garden lover, Frank has led countless local initiatives through the Friends of Wombat Hill Botanic Gardens, Friends of Lake Daylesford, Christ Church Anglican, the Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre, and regional tourism organisations.
At the same time as his involvement with the Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre, Frank was also engaged with the Fitzroy Learning Network, an inner-city neighbourhood centre supported by the Myer Foundation. As a long-term Myer employee, Frank worked with the foundation after retirement, helping to establish a partnership between the Fitzroy and Daylesford centres. This initiative enabled refugee families from Fitzroy to visit and connect with Daylesford, building productive and positive cross-community relationships.
Frank was also a committee member of the Williamstown Little Theatre for several years and oversaw marketing and production of the monthly newsletter, which helped the 80-year-old community theatre sustain engagement and morale throughout the Covid pandemic.
His leadership is defined by creativity, cooperation and persistence – qualities that have brought people together across generations and interests.
Cr Clark said Radical Fields had positively impacted the shire community by engaging and encouraging community participation and celebrating our unique culture.
The Biggest Morning Tea also had a positive impact on the community by bringing people together to participate, promoting inclusiveness while recognising and valuing diversity, and building a more resilient community.

Colour dominates the life of the phenomenal Prue Acton. Her eyes sparkle when she talks about it.

From the age of 15 she learnt life drawing for four years, yet nothing about colour, before becoming the golden girl of Australian fashion.
“Colours are my alert system,” she says. “Not sound, vocal, or feel. Just colour.”
We last talked for a book a mere 42 years ago. Then she was almost full to overflowing with a passion for philosophy, politics, psychology and a love of surfing. That, plus a warmth for Japan and its food (which includes eating raw chicken). “She’ll eat anything!” said the locals.
Just as her zeal continues, so does her crown of curls.
Her early success was nothing short of astonishing. At 22, Prue was producing more than 350 designs a year, selling an average of 1000 dresses a week. By 1982 her worldwide sales were estimated at $11 million a year. The first Australian woman designer to show her range in New York, she sold 5000 frocks on Fifth Avenue in just a few months.
Her background reflects her drive. Her grandfather had seven sheep properties. Her grandmother had eight children, four of them orphans of relatives. Prue’s mother was a partner with her husband in self-service stores and supermarkets.
Prue won a media-bestowed unofficial gold medal at the Montreal Olympics (for uniform design). At the Los Angeles Olympics, the roar of applause from the crowd as the Australian team entered in bright yellow uniforms and Driza-bone hats stays with her. “It was the biggest day of my life.” This earned her another first prize.
Elevated to the Fashion Industry Hall of Fame, she was awarded an OBE in 1982 and honoured on a commemorative postage stamp in 2005.
She stepped away from designing in the late ’80s, saying there was more to life than making money.
“I was trying to save the Earth.” She campaigned to save native trees and chuckles as she remembers family land being sold to a timber company on the pragmatic basis that someone else would have done so anyway.
Prue vividly remembers leading artist Clifton Pugh returning from the Outback to show her the red-gold earth and green-blue foliage. These colours led her back to painting and being taught by Pugh, later accompanying him on 16-day Outback painting tours.
When we meet, she has been working for three days on a large work (“Eighty-four by eighty-four”). “By Monday I was buggered,” she candidly says. “I need absolute quiet, every ounce of concentration. Quietude.”
Her development as an artist was helped by other outstanding painters, all now deceased, including Andrew Sibley, Charles Blackman and Brett Whiteley. She tells of Whiteley’s wine-coloured Sydney studio and a conversation with him that revealed “his incredible brain. And unbelievable intelligence.”
She has exhibited at Pugh’s gallery and across Australia. Paintings are on the floor of her home, on a table and many walls: reclining figures, geometric figures, landscapes and still lifes. Two of her especially powerful works, often thought to be surreal, show the sky near Canberra after bushfires.
For 30 years Prue ran workshops with her partner, the late Mervyn Moriarty, an outstanding painter and legendary figure in Queensland art, famous for founding the Flying Art School, now the Flying Art Alliance. They met when he took over outback painting tours and Prue had decided to leave business for painting.
In 1976 Moriarty used prize money from an arts award to learn to fly so he could teach art in the outback. Some of his award-winning works are on her walls.
Through him, artists, educators and communities gained so much exposure to contemporary art, says Prue, that Queensland’s rural art standards are, for example, greater than those of New South Wales.
Her passion for the arts is clear as her arms go wide in anger at the destruction of the central state arts body, Creative Victoria, which suddenly cut funds for eight successful arts organisations, with seven others being given a chance to reapply. A total of $20 million has been cut from its budget since 2022. “There is no money!”
Prue, who turned 83 last month, moved to Daylesford from Tatura in the Goulburn Valley at the start of Covid, buying her house unseen on-line. She says she has always been a country girl, spending most weekends out of Melbourne.
Of all her homes she says she is a “regenerist” in that she allows her gardens to return to nature. One was 147 acres, the current one is a quarter acre. As we talk, there are tiny birds just an arm’s length away. It’s all about the amazing Central Highland’s volcanic soil.
We return to colour. She has long thought about it and developed a theory. During her next touring exhibition, called The Colour of Nature, she will talk on “Why Colours Matter”.

Words: Kevin Childs | Image: Richard Cornish

Australia’s oldest uniformed cadet organisation, The Australian Air League, founded in 1934, is establishing a new squadron in the Macedon Ranges.
The AAL is an organisation open to anyone aged 8-18 and adults as officers (18+) with aims to promote an interest in aviation among young people and enable them to become better citizens, serve the community and achieve their full potential.
The AAL fosters a sense of pride, discipline and increased confidence in cadets which has advantages beyond parade nights, camps and reviews. A regular parade night includes drill (marching), education and games.
Cadets start with the very basics of aviation and can work their way to a pilot’s licence. A wide variety of courses can be undertaken from meteorology, space flight, first aid and navigation through to drone activities, cabin crew and many more.
Adults are also needed as officers with training provided following regulatory checks and interviews. As well, parents of cadets are encouraged to become involved in the formation of a committee to support fund-raising projects and support officers.
The first parade night for the Woodend Squadron will be on Tuesday July 7 at 6.45pm at the Norma Richardson Hall, Buckland Street, Woodend. An information night will be held at the hall on Tuesday, June 30 at 6.30pm.
Link: www.airleague.com.au or call 1800 502 175