With Eve Lamb

Malmsbury artist Tia Alysse discovered her natural and considerable talent for art while still a school child. From a very young age she was encouraged in her arts endeavour with praise from teachers. Her love for animals, however, would see her go on to study veterinary science at university before she ultimately resolved to dedicate herself to art. Tia has been selling her artwork commercially since late 2016 through galleries, interior design stores and her own studio, and now teaches painting classes as well. This gifted artist’s love of animals and the living world is reflected in the beautiful works she creates, some of which will soon be exhibited as part of The Little Gallery’s upcoming winter fundraising show in Trentham.

Eve: Hi Tia. Beautiful work! Your love of animals is obvious in your work. Do you think there’s any chance you might ever go back to studying vet science?

Tia: I don’t think so. I think I might be a bit too sensitive.

Eve: How far did you get with your vet studies before you switched to focussing on art?

Tia: I did one year.

Eve: Are you able to devote yourself to your art full-time now?

Tia: Yes. After so many requests for pet portraits, it led me down the path of focussing on animals. Commissions are such a big part of what I do. Also in the last two years my Country Canvases art classes have been my bread and butter. I will also be doing Spring-Summer workshops where people can choose a class by subject matter.

Eve: Why animals?

Tia: I do a bit of everything, but I feel like I have a real soft spot for animals. They’re one of my greatest loves really.

Eve: Your work is very realistic. It’s an amazing ability. Do you paint in any other styles as well?

Tia: I used to be a lot more expressive and abstract, but then I started to focus much more on figurative and realistic work. The demand for portraits has lent me more to realism.

Eve: Any recent career highlights?

Tia: I have just completed a mural for Nellie’s Shed, the garden and retail store, in Woodend. It was amazing to work on that scale.

Eve: That sounds like a lot of fun, to work large-scale in such a public space. What is the size of the mural? Is it outdoors?

Tia: Yes it’s outdoors. There were four exterior panels and each piece was 1.2 by 2.1 metres. I used a sort of notion of leading you down the garden path. It is a bit whimsical. I’d definitely like to do more murals into the future.

Eve: What is your work process, Tia? Do your work from photos or do you tend to sketch animals in the field or habitat?

Tia: I mostly work from photographs. When I first started painting pet portraits I’d get asked to take pictures of people’s pets for them, but I’ve since started making it a strict rule to supply the photo of the pet you want painted. But I do take a lot of reference images for things like bees and lady bugs. I take photos quite avidly, and I do painstaking pre-sketch work.

Eve: What media do you work with?

Tia: Acrylics mostly. But I do use other media as well including charcoal.

Eve: What are some of the portrait subjects you have had so far?

Tia: Mostly cats and dogs, but there’s also been horses, the odd lizard. There have been alpacas, rabbits, husbands.

Eve: (laughs) Ah! You paint humans as well?

Tia: Yes. Occasionally people. I do like to enter the Archibald just for the fun of it.

Eve: That’s great. Did you enter this year?

Tia: No not this year, but a couple of times in previous years.

Eve: Who have your chosen subjects been?

Tia: There was Manfred Zabinskas of Five Freedoms Animal Rescue one year, and also my partner’s parents who have been acknowledged with an OAM for fostering over 100 children.

Eve: What are you planning to exhibit as part of the upcoming Little Gallery’s winter fundraising show, Tia?

Tia: One larger piece and six smaller pieces. For the larger piece I kind of wanted something that has a cosiness to it with the English animals that I love to paint. Owls, pig, hare, deer. And for the smaller pieces, some little bees.

Eve: What do you enjoy most about your arts practice?

 Tia: It’s very therapeutic. Very calming. One of the reasons I work a lot at night is that it is my quiet, alone time. Working at night allows me to engage at a deeper level with the work. #

The Melbourne Cup is coming to Trentham as part of the 2024 Lexus Melbourne Cup Tour.

The tour, courtesy of the Cup’s manufacturer W.J. Sanders, and its sister company ABC Bullion, will start in Cowes on June 28 and will arrive in Trentham on October 16.

There it will head to the Hotel Trentham, owned by Australian Basketball Hall of Famer and Olympian Chris Anstey.

Chris bought the hotel in July last year. “It sits in the middle of a historic street, and the street had lost its heartbeat a bit, so we wanted to give it its heart back. It’s a pub for the locals, nothing too fancy,” he
told news outlets.

“I spent as much time (on the application) as I’ve spent on anything since high school. We can’t wait to put together the sort of visit the town deserves.”

The day will include a parade down the main street. Along with Australia, the Cup will have also made an appearance around the world, visiting New Zealand, Ireland, the UK, the USA and Japan.

The final route was decided after a record-breaking number of applications were received by the Victoria Racing Club from towns and cities around the world.

Manufactured in Australia for the VRC using 1.69kg of ABC Bullion 18-carat yellow gold, and recently independently valued at $750,000, the Cup has been hand-forged by W.J. Sanders since 2016.

Each year, the Cup takes over 250 hours to produce at the W.J. Sanders workshop in Marrickville, Sydney.

Every team member contributes to making the trophy, starting up to eight months before the race, which occurs on the first Tuesday in November.

“We are deeply honoured at W.J. Sanders and ABC Bullion to play a role in crafting this remarkable legacy,” said Darren May, general manager at W.J. Sanders.

“The Lexus Melbourne Cup embodies the true essence of being proudly Australian made and it fills me with immense pride that, in a world of mass production and lean manufacturing, our team of talented craftsmen and women have been entrusted to create this iconic symbol of international sport.”

Melbourne Cup Day is on Tuesday, November 5

The Mechanics Trentham was officially opened last Friday by Hepburn Shire mayor Cr Brian Hood, Mary-Anne Thomas MP and The Hon. Catherine King MP.

This state-of-the-art facility is intended to embrace the needs of the whole community, with playgroup space, a library and study nooks, workspaces, visitor information, a commercial-style kitchen, and a function space for 245 people standing or 180 seated.

Cr Hood acknowledged that the key project had been a major investment for Trentham and surrounds, and followed a 2013 review of local facilities.

“I’m thrilled to see the newly completed building open,” Cr Hood said.

“We are very grateful for the funding from both state and federal governments, and the dedication of Council, its officers, and the community-based Project Advisory Group who worked together on this wonderfully progressive design.

“It incorporates highly flexible spaces that cater to a wide range of groups and events.”

The Melbourne Cup is coming to Trentham as part of the 2024 Lexus Melbourne Cup Tour.

The tour, courtesy of the Cup’s manufacturer W.J. Sanders, and its sister company ABC Bullion, will start in Cowes on June 28 and will arrive in Trentham on October 16.

Along with Australia, the Cup will also visit New Zealand, Ireland, the UK, the USA and Japan.

The final route was decided after a record-breaking number of applications were received by the Victoria Racing Club from towns and cities around the world.

Manufactured in Australia for the VRC using 1.69kg of ABC Bullion 18-ct yellow gold, and recently independently valued at $750,000, the Cup has been hand-forged by W.J. Sanders since 2016. Each year, the Cup takes over 250 hours to produce at the W.J. Sanders workshop in Marrickville, Sydney. Every team member contributes to making the trophy, starting up to eight months before the race, which occurs on the first Tuesday of November.

“We are deeply honoured at W.J. Sanders and ABC Bullion to play a role in crafting this remarkable legacy,” said Darren May, general manager at W.J. Sanders. “The Lexus Melbourne Cup embodies the true essence of being proudly Australian made and it fills me with immense pride that, in a world of mass production and lean manufacturing, our team of talented craftsmen and women have been entrusted to create this iconic symbol of international sport.”

Melbourne Cup Day is on Tuesday, November 5.

Words: Donna Kelly

With Eve Lamb

Just at home riding a Harley motorcycle through the desert as he is mingling in a classy art gallery, Sailors Falls creative, Michael Lelliott works with paint, drawing, photography, film, sculpture and sound to celebrate beauty where he finds it. Currently, inspired by a very recent desert excursion, he is working on a suite of new paintings to exhibit as part of this August’s winter fundraising show at The Little Gallery in Trentham,  where he will be among participating artists.

Eve: Michael I hear that you are currently preparing for a rather special show at The Little Gallery in Trentham, the gallery’s annual winter fundraising show. What do you have in mind for that?

Michael: Phillip Edwards,  who has the Bullarto Gallery, and I are just back from a trip to the desert, the Mungo National Park, camping in swags, and I am doing on a body of work coming out of that trip for The Little Gallery show.

I am also planning to enter a work (coming out of this trip) in the Pro Hart Outback Art Prize.

Eve: A camping trip to the desert. Sounds like fun. Can you tell me a bit more about about it?

Michael: What I love about getting into that space, that landscape, is that the more you sit and wait, the more that’s revealed. You start to see the shift in colour and the shift in time, and the Mungo is on this amazing dune that’s constantly being pushed back revealing layers going back in time.

We had a little walking tour there with an Indigenous guide. And while we were there we also started painting under moonlight which was a really interesting experience.

Eve: What sort of media are you working with as you prepare work for the upcoming winter show at The Little Gallery?

Michael: Watercolour, pencil and gauche on paper. I often work at night. You can get a lot done at night, play dance music and have a glass of wine while you work. The work I am doing is very physical. I put a lot of movement into the work. I’m not a traditional watercolourist.

Eve: What is your background?

Michael: My background is in product design, consumer products. I still do a bit of brand work but I am now becoming a full-time artist.

I studied art at the Victorian College of the Arts in the late 80s, early 90s, print making and photography and I had an arts practice for 30 years, lived in Fitzroy, Europe, Germany for a while. I was pretty focussed on brands, product design but I decided to refocus at the end of ’22, start of ’23.

Last year I spent the first six months just discovering mark-making again. We went to the desert. Mutawintji and Bimbowrie. I think ‘space’ is the right word. The landscape gives you permission to be present.

Eve: Are you inspired by any particular artists?

Michael: So many. Right now I’m thinking of Fred Williams, also of Russell Drysdale in terms of landscape. Those sort of 40s, 50s, 60s Australian artists.

Eve: I know that you are truly a multi-media artist, who is even known to dance, but what genre are you working with currently?

Michael: Still life and landscape. With still life and landscape I can get out of my own way. With photography though, I do focus on people. And I tend to shoot without setting it up.  

Eve: Anything else coming up on your artistic radar, Michael?

Michael: Yes. A group show at the Bullarto Gallery with Phillip Edwards and one or two other artists in November.

I’m heading to the States (USA) in July and we – a group of friends, actors, artists, sculptors and I – are riding our Harleys from LA to New York, starting our trip by going across Death Valley.

We’re going to follow The Rockies so I’m expecting there’ll be other work coming out of that for the Bullarto show. Australia is my heart-space. But it will be interesting to see how the desert there is different.

I am also going through a series of photos I did between 2010 and 2014 for a book. It’s particularly about motorcycle subculture.

In the second half of the 19th century Trentham was a major hub for timber production, much of which went underground supporting the tunnels excavated at mines in nearby Daylesford.

And so when a railway was constructed between Carlsruhe and Daylesford branching off the main line to Bendigo, Trentham was one of the stops.

The first section to Trentham opened on February 16, 1880. To service freight and passengers a handsome weatherboard station house and 80m platform was installed complete with extra rail sidings and goods sheds. Sadly by the 1970s the old line was being used less and less as its bridges, tracks and rolling stock fell into poor repair, and in June 1978 the line was closed for good.

For many years the old station and railway yards were neglected until around 25 years ago when a group came together to try and save it. The preservation group has been known by several names over the years but in July 2023 it became the Trentham Rail and Tramway Association and the new committee has some new plans in place to utilise the precinct.

“Our association maintains and preserves the entire precinct allowing the community to use the facilities for events in the town including the Tractor Pull, Spudfest, classic car shows, and any other events deemed suitable,” says TRATA president Leigh Sutcliffe

“We realised we could actually utilise this space a lot better,” says committee member Rob Urquhart. “It could be a centre for the whole town and hopefully draw more people from outside the district to discover what we have here. We have always been told it is one of the best preserved stations around and we are pretty proud of that.”

Work on the area has certainly taken on some newfound momentum with financial and material assistance coming from a range of sources. And in February they were fortunate to receive small project funding from VicTrack which they put towards landscaping.

The group has also received grants from a number of local businesses and Hepburn Shire Council. This has allowed them to put in picnic tables built by the men’s shed and rebuild the front gates as per original. Committee member Lea Davis has also been doing a lot of work on rejuvenating the whole garden precinct.

“We are trying really hard to give it a feel of an English garden,” says Lea. “It is early days yet but we have planted rhododendrons, dogwoods, foxglove and magnolias all the way down along the station.”

In previous years the precinct was the site of the Trentham market and the tourist information centre. However Covid lockdowns put an end to the market and the information centre is to be relocated to the new Trentham Hub currently under construction. But there are plans to bring the market back after winter.

Leigh says the the old station needs to be re-stumped so they will be looking for additional support to start that project in the near future.

Words & image: Tony Sawrey

For one weekend every autumn, Trentham is all about the humble potato.

The Great Trentham Spudfest is a community festival that brings together potato growers, artisans, music, food vendors and history to showcase the region’s finest offerings and products. The festival is on Saturday, May 4 and Sunday, May 5.

“Spudfest 2024 promises to be bigger and brighter than ever before, celebrating our region’s potato culture and history, but most of all, our community,” says festival coordinator Kye Theobald.

“Spudfest is still a free event (but) we are also introducing some specially curated events that will require a ticket. Celebrating our great potato region across two days is a great opportunity for visitors to stay and plan a full weekend of discovery with friends and family.”

On Saturday, May 4, Trentham comes alive with Spudfest’s traditional carnival day, with four main precincts in town packed full of spud food, fresh regional produce, artisan makers, live music, horse and cart rides, and loads of activities for kids and adults alike.

Visitors can also join a Trentham & District Historical Society led bus tour of the old heritage-protected Spud Huts.

Local farmer and fourth generation spud grower Luke Wicker, right, will be at the Railway Precinct on Saturday selling his Kennebec, Nicola, Dutch Cream, Pontiac, Sebago and Kipfler potatoes.

“There has been a Wicker growing potatoes in the red volcanic soils around Trentham for over 100 years,” says Luke.

Saturday evening will see the inaugural Spudfest Cèilidh, a celebration of Celtic music, food, and dancing, at The Factory on Market Street, with catering by Emma James Catering. Tickets for this event can be purchased via the Spudfest website.

Sunday is dedicated to the discovery of food, produce, and region. Kicking off at 10am is Spudfeast, with spudtastic dishes on offer in a progressive dinner style at venues throughout the region including The Cosmo, Trentham General, Trentham Food & Wine Co., Daylesford Cider, Aterics, Blackwood Hotel and many more.

Four local farms will be conducting tours all day Sunday, inviting visitors behind the farm gate. It’s a chance to meet and hear from growers at Fleurs de Lyonville (organic flower farm), Walden Park (humanscale, regenerative, and agroecological beef), Mountain ViewGarlic (a small family-run garlic and fresh produce farm), and Little Hampton Farm, where you can discover organic cherries, berries, veggies, and heritage apples.

You can also make your own way along the self-guided Farm Gate Trail to unearth growers’ fresh produce and hidden foodie secrets or take part in The Great Spud Scavenger Hunt, join a Historical Society tour of the Trentham Cemetery or head to the RedBeard Bakery and its 133-year-old Scotch oven.

Link: www.trenthamspudfest.org.au

A pioneering healthy ageing project in the Hepburn Shire has been expanded to Daylesford, Trentham and Creswick after a successful pilot program in Clunes.

The project is a result of a partnership between Clunes Neighbourhood House, Attitude – Ageing Well in Clunes, and Central Highlands Rural Health and is backed by the Western Victoria Primary Health Network.

It encompasses two key strategies designed to empower older individuals and improve their quality of life.

The project seeks to inspire healthy habits, foster connections and provide ongoing support to ensure these positive changes persist well into the later years.

The first phase of the project was to develop a ‘healthy ageing hub’ prototype in Clunes that would provide a range of connections, activities and resources in partnership with community groups, and the second phase was to use the lessons learned from the pilot to expand the project’s reach and impact across the region.

Central Highlands Rural Health deputy CEO Phil Catterson said the project was about enhancing people’s lives by reducing the risk of isolation.

“We wanted to make sure that people have access to information and opportunities to connect with their community as those who are active in their community can feel more purpose in life which has many positive health benefits.

“It’s been fantastic to work with the neighbourhood centres across the region to bring this program to life.

We strongly believe that for projects like this to be successful and to get the community to get on board, it has to be done with the community and in partnership with existing community groups and services like the neighbourhood centres.

“Working closely with local neighbourhood centres, the healthy ageing project builds on existing community initiatives and local groups to centralise accurate information on programs and groups available to the community through the creation of a ‘What’s On’ guide.

“This printed booklet has a list of groups available with information on how to get involved. At each neighbourhood centre in Creswick, Daylesford and Trentham there has been a kiosk installed that the community can use to find programs and groups to join to stay connected with technical support offered by the neighbourhood centres and the program volunteers.”

Clunes Neighbourhood House manager Lana de Kort said a key outcome of the pilot program in Clunes had been improved connections through existing groups and community services.

“We’ve been able to reach out to people that we wouldn’t necessarily have known who might be in vulnerable positions or at risk of isolation to form connections and look out for their wellbeing. Big things can come from little beginnings where people collaborate at all levels across the community. And that’s what this is all about.”

Words & image: Contributed

Trenthamites have gathered in recent days, to raise a glass to a new mural that really puts their neck of the woods on the proverbial map.

The map is the work of local artist Natalie Davis from Chalkysigns and can be found at the Vic Market Community Cafe in Trentham.

The map features Trentham’s iconic spaces and fauna Vic Market is a new space opposite the historic Trentham Railway Station offering locally made consumables and crafted goods.

Retired Anglican priest, Trentham’s Peta Sherlock admits she’s more than a tad addicted to fossicking out fascinating stories of the past.

“It’s a nice addiction,” chuckles the dedicated amateur historian who simply loves to share her keen
interest in the lives of those who have gone before with those living today.

Right now Peta, a member of Trentham Historical Society, is preparing to indulge that passion a little
when she leads a historical tour of the Trentham Cemetery on Saturday, March 23.

Everyone is welcome to join Peta as she leads the 75 minute tour being presented by the Trentham Historical Society in conjunction with Trentham Neighbourhood Centre, for the very nominal cost of $8.

Tour participants will not only be taken on a rollicking journey through the past, “meeting” some of the intriguing characters who lie at rest in this local cemetery, they’ll also receive the benefit of Peta’s extensive research – and an informative printed pamphlet she has prepared as well.

“I love the cemetery. It’s the people, and this is full of people,” says Peta whose prior tours of this local cemetery, including one earlier this month, tend to be very well received. They’ve all got stories,” she says.

They certainly have. The Trentham Cemetery was established in 1870 and even one quick tour looking into the former lives of those who lie at rest here provides a rich dip into Trentham’s post European past.

There are the early settlers, the captains of industry, the visionary, the wealthy, the mysterious, the
heroic and the tragic. There are love stories buried here and tales that could make you weep.

A look into the lives of those who now lie at rest here provides a potted history of the development of the township and lively insights into how the movers and shakers of the 1800s and early 1900s got things done.

Peta says that as the town’s built environment changes, the cemetery increasingly becomes the only
physical connection left to many significant threads of its past.

“It’s not a scary place. To me they are still ‘alive’,” she says.

“Some have had horrible lives. Some have lost all their babies. There are people who made a mess of their lives and people who made a great success of their lives. But they are all God’s creatures.”

Peta’s research into the lives of those interred in the Trentham cemetery dates back to 2014 when
she started researching the history of the town’s Anglican Church to mark the 150th anniversary of
the denomination’s presence at Trentham… “Then you start to get interested in everybody,” she says, recalling how the history bug bit.

Peta has her own personal favourite grave sites, the memorial resting places for characters like 1800s businessman about town J.W.S. Wolff, local humanitarian Catherine (Kit) Trewhella, and much-loved yesteryear medic Dr Gwen Wisewould. She loves to share their stories and the way their legacies have shaped the community that Trentham is today.

“I want to know who talked to whom when they spotted them in town, and who walked on the other side of the street,” she says.

In carrying out her research, Peta has noticed certain patterns emerge. Patterns that she has come
to realise can point to significant demographic trends. She mentions early sanitation problems, the disposal of night soil, by the “dunny men” of the day, down old mine shafts, the subsequent pollution of local waterways, the potentially lethal link to typhoid.

There are the tragic trends whose ghostly fingerprints have left their traces in the early burial records… The yesteryear deaths of an unusually high number of men of a certain age, the potentiality of syphilis playing its part. People lived and partied hard in those days, apparently. But speculation is speculation, and Peta strives always to find the facts.

“Only God is perfect and history is an ongoing thing,” she muses as she hands me with a copy of the
pamphlet she has produced to accompany her tour.

“This is pretty accurate and nobody has pulled me up on anything quite yet,” she says.

One of the elements Peta relishes about leading a cemetery tour is the input from those who take the tour.

“Often people will tell me stuff,” she says.

“A cemetery can be a confronting place, partly because here we realise our own mortality.”

Peta is no stranger to the presence of human mortality, having conducted funeral services during her
many years spent working as a priest.

“Even though some of the stories today are about the full and fruitful lives of past Trenthamites, some are also sad, the death of children especially so,” she says.

“It’s a lovely cemetery. It’s been really well looked after and it’s run by a local trust of volunteers.”

Those keen to take the upcoming tour and “meet” many of those colourful, now at rest, characters who once peopled Trentham and surrounds can contact the Trentham Neighbourhood Centre to book into Peta’s next tour taking place on Saturday March 23.

Words: Eve Lamb

The state government says it’s boosting ambulance services in the Hepburn Shire with construction now under way to deliver an upgraded ambulance facility in Trentham.

Minister for Ambulance Services Mary-Anne Thomas last Friday visited the current Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) on Station Street. Upon completion of works later this year, it will transition into an Ambulance Community Officers (ACOs) facility.

Since 2020, the Trentham community has been served by dedicated local volunteer members of the CERT, but with increased demand across the region, the upgrade to an ACO branch will employ paid ‘on call’ first responders – a move expected to make it easier to recruit more local members and expand the current team.

ACOs are locally based first responders trained to provide advanced first aid in small rural and remote communities where ambulance caseloads are generally lower.

These officers are dispatched at the same time as Ambulance Victoria’s Advanced Life Support (ALS) or MICA paramedics to a Triple Zero call – due to their location and proximity within the local community, they can generally always provide the fastest response.

Unlike CERT volunteers who use a four-wheel drive vehicle, the ACO branch will also be home to a new ambulance vehicle that can transport patients, in turn freeing up ambulance crews in the region.

Trentham CERT volunteers will all be offered positions within the new ACO team to continue to play an important role in supporting their community when the new branch becomes operation later this year.

To help with the transition, the refurbishment is poised to deliver a bigger and better facility, including a training room, rest and recline areas for crews to recuperate, space for a new ambulance vehicle, parking and security upgrades.

Minister for Ambulance Services and Member for Macedon Mary Anne Thomas: “The new Ambulance Community Officers will help meet the growing demand for emergency care across the region, reducing pressure on our paramedics who often need to travel longer distances to reach patients in region, reducing pressure on our paramedics who often need to travel longer distances to reach patients in regional areas.”

Trentham’s Cosmopolitan Hotel is holding an inaugural International Women’s Day Charity Lunch in Trentham on Friday, March 8.

The hotel will host a three-course lunch and the event will feature guest speakers and music from the Castlemaine Chamber Orchestra.

The historic hotel will host a delicious three-course lunch with free-flowing drinks from event partner Shadowfax Wines and the debut fundraiser includes a cocktail on arrival from the drink sponsor Big Tree Distillery.

Proceeds will go to Sunbury and Cobaw Community Health’s Family Services and Housing Support programs which provide support to women and children experiencing family violence.

Tickets are available through www.humanitix.com

Coming up Sunday February 18th, the Trentham Fashion Swap team will host their first of four clothing swaps for 2024, at the Trentham Neighborhood Centre.

Team members make no secret of the fact that they’re pretty excited about the upcoming swap event which they say is sure to be a fabulous day out to feel good, connect with the community, save money and help protect our planet.

In a media release previewing the upcoming swap they also say:

“The amount of clothing being thrown away has been skyrocketing globally, especially since clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2014.

“In Australia alone, over 200,000 tonnes of clothing ends up in landfills annually. Unsustainable quantities of water, energy and resources are required to produce these clothes, and their production often involves harmful pesticides, damaging mining processes, toxic dyes and poor worker conditions.

“Clothing swaps are a great way to reduce this waste and help find loving new owners for unwanted apparel and accessories.

“So do your part by bringing along up to 8 clean and wearable items to the Trentham Summer Swap, which will focus on women’s clothing of all sizes, formalwear and maternity clothing, shoes, jewellery and accessories.

“No spare items? No worries, come along and make a gold coin donation. Please bring along your friends, because everybody is welcome at this marvellous seasonal event, and there will even be afternoon tea and a door raffle. Proudly sponsored by Trentham Sustainability Group and Hepburn Shire Council.”

The Trentham Fashion Swap is a seasonal event hosted by a team of passionate local volunteers. The idea gained momentum when it was supported by Trentham Sustainability Group’s Great Ideas for Sustainability in Trentham (GIST) contest in 2023 and is expanding in 2024 thanks to a Hepburn Shire Council community funding grant.

The team is planning a few more exciting initiatives to promote circular fashion in 2024 too, so stay tuned for more news soon.

Hepburn shire residents can can now purchase low-cost e-“waste” items at Creswick and Trentham Transfer Stations.

This follows the success of the e-waste recovery pilot at Daylesford Transfer Station, the Hepburn Shire Council has reported in the final edition of its Sustainable Hepburn newsletter for 2023.
   
Electronic items that pass safety inspections are now available through the shire’s resource recovery Shops (aka tip shops). The function of second-hand items cannot be guaranteed, and they are sold as-is. 

The council, in its newsletter, says “it’s all part of unlocking circular economy opportunities and increasing resource recovery locally in our shire”.

Since commencing the pilot in February last year, more than 550 electronic items have been recovered and made available for purchase and a new lease on life. 

They’re a lively and character-packed lot, the dogs of Trentham, and not least among them is Trooper the kelpie.

Owned by a resident, Trooper is famous – or infamous some might say – as quite the lad about town and, most recently, also as the front cover pin-up boy on the new calendar produced by Dogs of Trentham.

DOT is the enthusiastic group of local dog lovers and owners who have been working with Hepburn Shire Council to establish a permanent off-leash dog park.

In December 2022 group members were delighted that the council upgraded the reserve in Trentham’s Market Street, erecting fencing and gates to provide the community with two trial off-leash dog areas.

The trial has proven very successful with increasing numbers of locals and visitorsusing the facility, and last year DOT supported its efforts by releasing a fundraising Dogs of Trentham calendar.

Following hot on the success of last year, they’ve now released a new calendar for 2024 featuring a whole new line-up of photographic pooches.

Trentham photographer James Walshe is a DOT committee member and dedicated dog owner who has taken the photographic images that feature in the new calendar.

Trooper was an obvious choice for the front as he is such a local identity, due to his frequent solo sojourns about town, DOT committee members say.

Among them, Trentham’s Cynthia Goudie has attached an air tag to Trooper’s collar so that he can be tracked down using a phone-based app, and safely collected when out and about on one of his community strolls.

“He’s a bit like Red Dog. He’s a real Houdini,” says Cynthia who’s even created a social media narrative featuring Trooper and his frequently humorous tales and adventures. Suffice to say these have gained a significant fan following.

“The whole community knows him and he’s become a community dog,” Cynthia says.

“He’s a bit of an icon in town and he tends to take himself into town for a wander,” James says.

Proceeds from sales of the new calendars will help DOT continue its work toward realising the dream of a larger, permanent space for dogs, and also go to further enhancing the current Market Street dog park.

James and Cynthia say proceeds will also be directed to other good dog-related deeds like training up a “reading dog” to help local school students who may need an extra hand to get ahead with their studies.

“The dog park is about much more than just a space to toss a ball around for the dogs,” says James. “It’s also very much about a space for humans to interact and has certain mental health benefits as well.”

The $20 calendar may be obtained via DOT’s Facebook page or by picking up a copy at the Trentham Post Office or the Community Bank Trentham & Districts.

Words & images: Eve Lamb