Maggi Barnard

Maggi Barnard has been with the Parkes Phoenix since it was established in March 2016 and loves writing about her community.

Snippets…

July 12, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

With the AstroFest: happening this weekend, Council installed new astro public art in Church street in support of the annual event. The works of finalists from the David Malin Astrophotography Awards throughout the history of Astrofest are featured.

Funding For Wartime History: The Parkes Cenotaph and Vietnam War Memorial will be upgraded thanks to four grants. The total of $10,111 was approved under the Federal Government’s Saluting Their Service commemorations program and will go towards updating honour roll plaques on the Cenotaph and the Vietnam War Memorial, erect a chain fence at the Cenotaph and install a flag pole and security lighting at the memorial.

Council’s Heritage Fund: Parkes Shire Council is inviting owners and lessees of significant land and buildings to apply for dollar for dollar matched funding under their Local Heritage Fund Program. More than $54,655 worth of heritage projects were completed in the last financial year with more than $33,655 contributed by applicants and $21,000 provided through local heritage funding. Work included the restoration to the church doors at the
Parkes Uniting Church, the continuing reinstatement and repainting of Balmoral House, and restoration to the external façade of the Railway Hotel, Parkes. Applications close on Tuesday, 31st July. Application forms, conditions and guidelines are available on Council’s website or from Council’s Administration Centre.

Country Music News: The next muster is this Sunday at 1pm in the Starlight lounge at the Parkes Services Club. Cheryl Simpson, vocalist from Dubbo accompanied by Tony Dess on keyboard, is the featured performer. Walk-ups are welcome. The June Muster was a great success with Barry Green. He was joined by visiting artists from Dubbo – Gary Hollier, Barry Josephs, Craig Manderson and Mick Bruce; from Cowra – Ken Chalker, Bill Murray and Stephen Cheney; Dawn Brydon from Narromine and Ann Penman from Lyndhurst. The muster at Peak Hill on 1st July combined with Dubbo Orana CMA at the Services Club. The entertainment was excellent with artists Craig Manderson, Mick Bruce, Gary Hollier, Barry Dickenson, Greg Jankowski and birthday boy Barry Joseph from Dubbo; Jock and Lindy Charlton, Dale Cowell, Joy Rice and Stephen Cheney and new comer Annabelle van Wyk (10 years) who delighted with her performance as she sang and played guitar and saxophone.

NAIDOC Week Grants: Peak Hill Pre School Kindergarten Inc received a Federal Government grant of $900 for NAIDOC Week. They plan to invite Wiradjuri man Larry Brandy to present interactive traditional stories to the children, who will participate in the story telling. Local primary schools, their families and the wider communities are also invited.

What a Team!

July 12, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

Parkes residents Bill and Beth Thomas recently received the NSW Government State Representative Award from Member for Orange Philip Donato MP. They represented the Western Region in the Australian National Dragon Boat Championship earlier this year. “We are honoured to be recognised for doing what we love doing,” said Bill and Beth. “It just shows – if we can represent our State at our ages – anyone can be an athlete. One of the best things
about this sport is that we can do it together.”

Bill and Beth were also instrumental in the formation of the recently launched Parkes Dragon Boat Club at Lake Endeavour. The club is functioning with paddling sessions taking place on Sunday mornings. “We are confident that Parkes will have a great dragon boating team, because it’s already shaping up that way.”

Finnley’s Holiday Of Dreams

July 12, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

While most students are enjoying the winter holiday, a 15-year-old Parkes boy has taken a big step in realising his dream of playing professional rugby league one day. Red Bend Catholic College student Finnley Neilsen was selected in the NSW CCC Country Rugby League U/15 side in May at the State Championships in St Marys.

This week Finnley and his team attended the famous heritage Edmund Rice Retreat at Mulgoa in Penrith from Monday for intensive training and playing. On Tuesday they travelled to play Canterbury Bankstown at Peter Moore Oval in Belmore, and on Thursday they played Illawarra at Wollongong.

Today, Friday the 13th, the highlight of the week takes place when the team plays Penrith in the curtain raiser for the Penrith vs Cronulla game at Penrith Park.

“Finnley was very excited to be selected in the team,” said his grandfather and big supporter, Ray Neilsen. He said friends and relatives from Parkes would be in the stands at Penrith Park to cheer him on today.

“We are all very proud of him,” said Ray.

While the week’s camp concludes tomorrow, Finnley will still not be taking a break during the second week of the holiday. He was invited by the Penrith Panthers to spend a week of training at their academy to further enhance his league career. The Academy is a $22 million state-of-the-art facility located behind Panthers Leagues Club in Penrith, and is a fulltime training and development facility for the Panthers’ senior and junior squads.

Your Health Matters

July 12, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

Cold And Flu Season Is Here
Winter has arrived and so has the cold and flu season. Winter illness affects all ages, however newborns, young children, the elderly and individuals with health conditions are at a greater risk. Viruses causing colds spread from infected people through the air and through close personal contact like shaking hands, or touching an infected surface and then touching your eyes, mouth, or nose.

How to protect yourself:
Wash your hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds. Viruses can live on your hands, and regular handwashing can help protect you from getting sick. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth with unwashed
hands as viruses can enter your body this way and make you sick. Staying away from sick people as much as possible.

How to protect others:
If you have a cold stay at home, avoid close contact with others like hugging and shaking hands. Move away from people when you cough or sneeze, and do it into a tissue (then discard it) or into your elbow or upper sleeve completely covering your mouth and nose. Wash your hands afterwards.

Treating symptoms of colds:
Get lots of rest and drink plenty of fluids. Over-the-counter medicines may help ease symptoms, but will not make your cold go away any faster. Humidifiers and vaporisers will help warm air and reduce congestion for the elderly and very young. Heating in the home often causes the air to dry, which often irritates the respiratory tract.

At Parkes Pharmacy we have a large selection of over-the-counter products including, cough syrups, cold and flu preparations, throat lozenges and classic herbal remedies.

Footy Tipping Results – Round 17

July 10, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

Snippet…

July 5, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

Choose Aussie produce with CoOL: As Country of Origin Labelling (CoOL) became law on Sunday all food produced or manufactured from 1st July 2018 and sold in retail stores in Australia must display these labels. This will help customers to choose Aussie produce and support farmers. Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources
David Littleproud said research showed nearly three quarters of Australians think it was important to know the country of origin of their food. The new label displays a bar graph of how much of the product was grown by Aussie farmers, and a kangaroo telling us if the food was processed or manufactured in Australia.

Chat About Mental Health: The Tradies Brekky at Hay’s Hardware on 18th July at 7am is a good opportunity to hear about the work of Tradies In Sight. Come along for a free bacon and egg roll and a coffee. Tradies In Sight is a group-based life support group that focuses on helping other tradespeople to build personal and professional relationships.

Plan B – Footy Swag Winners: Footy fans were offered the chance to win a swag over the June long weekend at the Parkes Spaceman versus Forbes Magpies match, thanks to the Forbes/Parkes Community Drug Action Team (CDAT). The winners were Rod Maxwell and Glenn Clarke with Laylah Logan named the under 18’s winner
drawn from 100 adult entries and 70 under 18’s entries.

Volunteer/s needed for Parkrun startup: We would love to start a Parkrun in Forbes/Parkes but need a passionate community member or small team to make it happen. There is a lot of support and help offered from the head office, but the drive must come locally. If anyone is interested in leading the project please contact eventsupportau@parkrun.com. Parkrun is a simple concept and an international concept: turn up and walk or run 5km, or 2km if you’re a junior. It doesn’t matter how fast you go or what you’re wearing. Its all about inclusiveness and wellbeing.

New Fire Station In Budget: The NSW 2018-19 budget included continued funding for the new fire station in Parkes with $200,000 provided to establish the design and get started on the groundwork. The NSW Government’s 2017-18 budget included a further $150,000 towards the purchase of land for the new station following a $250,000 investment in the 2016-17 budget.

New Plants In Run For Prestigious Awards

July 5, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

The Parkes Shire Council’s ambitious and vast capital works project is being recognised for its excellence by successfully progressing to the final round of judging in two prestigious engineering award categories.

The council has two nominations in the Australian Engineering Excellence Awards and three nominations in the Institute of Public Engineering Australasia awards for its $100m Integrated Water Infrastructure Renewal Program that resulted in a complete overhaul of the town’s entire urban water management network.

The new Water Treatment Plant and the new Sewage Treatment Plant were open to the public in March this year after completion. The treatment plants provide a number of flow-on benefits to the community, including improved water and wastewater treatment, minimised operational costs, and enhanced environmental benefits.

The awards are currently being assessed and winners will be announced later in the year.

Mayoral Notes…

July 5, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

Council welcomed the news that it has been named a finalist in three categories at the 2018 Regional NSW Tourism Awards to be held in Orange on 28th July with the Parkes Elvis Festival nominated in the Festival and Events Category, Council’s brand campaigns in the Destination Marketing Category and the Parkes Visitor Information Centre in the Visitor Services category.

Accolades continue with Parkes Shire Council hoping to make a splash with the Parkes Integrated Water Infrastructure Renewal Program, which has progressed to the final round of judging in several prestigious engineering award categories.

Parkes Shire Council is inviting owners and lessees of significant land and buildings to apply for dollar for dollar matched funding under their Local Heritage Fund Program. Applications close on Tuesday, 31st July.

Following the construction of the new Peak Hill Waste & Recycling Transfer Station, Parkes Shire Council will soon implement the Parkes Shire Waste Strategy at the facility. As part of the Strategy, Council will implement charges at the site commencing 1st August.

Parkes Shire is celebrating NAIDOC Week 2018 by hosting the Galari ‘Mawam-Bul’ Art Exhibition and series of demonstrations and workshops in the Coventry Room at Parkes Shire Council from 9-12 July. The theme
‘Because of her, we can’ celebrates the invaluable contributions that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women have made – and continue to make – to our communities, families, rich history and to our nation.

Cr Ken Keith OAM
Mayor of Parkes Shire

The Gothic Wonderland Of Alice

July 5, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

They are everyday creatures like birds, bats, spiders and snakes, but like you’ve never seen them before glistening in the light or fading away as you move. Alice Stokes’ graphite drawings on charcoal and black paper on show at the
Parkes Library take you into the wonderland of her backyard at night.

“I feel the night get such a bad rap of being evil when it is the time when we dream and look up at the stars to experience the wonder of the universe.”

She admits to being mostly nocturnal in Berlin, her home for the past four years where she sharpened her creativity skills, until she returned to Parkes late last year. It was the black beauty of a raven that sparked inspiration for what became her first local exhibition called Australian Gothic Local.

“I was drawing ravens for about two months and going a bit crazy, when a friend talked about the beauty of red back spiders. I fear them, but had one in the house, and I tried getting it outside alive.”

Alice said when she started looking at spiders in books, their eyes were really big in the close-up photos. “They looked so cute, like little anime characters. I did not draw spiders to make them scary and decided to include spirographs. “Some things just come up when you are drawing. While the spirographs are childhood stuff it also looks like a spider’s weaving and reminds me of natural fractal patterns and the fates in Greek Mythology.”

Alice started experimenting drawing on charcoal in Berlin after she found a pamphlet from the Seventies about space. “It was all in German, but the pictures of astronauts and the moon were really cute. I started playing with charcoal and managed to draw on it. I liked how shiny it was and the beautiful contrast it created. But it is also very difficult to draw on and messy.” Two raven drawings in the exhibition are on charcoal, but the rest were done on black paper.

“Looking at the 20 pieces on exhibition I realised it was very dark, not in an evil sense, but more dreamlike with a sense of wonder and curiosity. I feel like I am only just scratching the surface of my work.” Alice has started reading about Jung’s work on dream imaginary, alchemy and archetypes “and I want to dig more into it.” She is keen to explore more alchemy art mixing science and imagination, as well as personified abstract things to eventually progress into drawing her own creatures.

Despite being a fan of the colour black, Alice said she was still scared of the dark when she first moved back into her childhood home. “I am less afraid of the dark now,” she said reflecting on the question she posed at the start of her journal: “Why are we afraid of the dark when it’s the sun that burns?”

Alice’s exhibition will run until 28th July at the Parkes Library. She also has three works in the “Here and Now” exhibition on show at the Orange Regional Gallery until 15th July.

By Maggi Barnard

Bakers Cyst

July 5, 2018 By Maggi Barnard

A baker’s cyst, also known as a popliteal cyst, is a swelling at the back of the knee joint. Baker’s cysts are fairly common and are associated with chronic swelling within the knee joint. They occur, most frequently, secondary to degenerative disease within the knee joint such as osteoarthritis or meniscal degeneration. The main sign that a
baker’s cyst is present will be a bulge and a feeling of tightness behind the knee.

This may be tender to touch with pain and stiffness often worsening as the knee is straightened after activity or when squatting or kneeling. Just as a door hinge requires oil to reduce friction and allow smooth movement, similarly, the cartilage and tendons in the knee joint rely on a lubricating fluid called synovial fluid. Synovial fluid circulates around the knee joint and in and out of various fluid sacs called bursae that communicate with the knee joint.

Sometimes when a structure within the knee joint is damaged or inflamed too much fluid is produced. If this fluid gets trapped in the popliteal bursae it is called a baker’s cyst.

If a baker’s cyst is suspected the whole knee joint should be assessed thoroughly as treatment involves treatment of the underlying cause. Once the cause has been addressed the swelling generally settles down. Sometimes the bursae might be drained or surgically removed but if the underlying cause of the swelling is not corrected the swelling will just return.

Strengthening exercises for the lower limb can help to improve joint biomechanics and to decrease the load on the knee.

“For the fitness of you,”
Linda Reilly

Maggi Barnard

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