All travelling drivers are entitled to a free cuppa from 1st March to 31st May across NSW.

In its 11th year of the ‘Free Cuppa for the Driver’ scheme, 17 local businesses in the Parkes, Forbes and Lachlan Shire Council areas have signed up for the campaign to help fight driver fatigue

These local businesses joined over 100 businesses across NSW from 1st March offering a free cup of tea or coffee to any driver who is more than 100kms away from home. The campaign runs until 31st May.

Since 2010, over 25,000 free cuppas have been given away, while fatigue-related crashes have fallen by 19% across NSW.

The scheme is an initiative of 17 regional council areas in NSW in partnership with Transport for NSW. This year, the scheme welcomed Wentworth, Mid-Western, Cootamundra-Gundagai and the Blue Mountains shires for the first time.

Parkes, Forbes and Lachlan Shire Councils’ Road Safety and Injury Prevention Officer Melanie Suitor said the second biggest killer on NSW roads was tired drivers.

“Free Cuppas are available from a broad range of businesses with varied opening hours, making regular breaks and free cup-pas more accessible than ever.”

The local businesses for 2021 are: ALBERT – The Rabbit Trap Hotel; BOGAN GATE – The Railway Hotel; CONDOBOLIN – Bowser Bean Café, Condobolin RSL Club; FORBES – Commercial Hotel, Forbes Bakehouse, Forbes Inn Hotel Motel, Isabel’s Place, Shell Forbes, Subway – Forbes; LAKE CARGELLIGO – Fisho’s Takeaway and Hotbake; PARKES – Parkes Coffee Pot, Pink Orchid Café + Florist, Smeaton’s Bakehouse; TULLAMORE – BP Tullamore, Casho’s; TULLIBIGEAL – Tulli-cafe

Go to freecuppa.com.au to search for the nearest participating business as well as other useful information, or follow the Facebook page to keep up to date on the scheme and the participating businesses.

An English assignment has turned into a passion for twelve-year-old Rebekah Knowling making her Parkes’s youngest news reporter.

Last week she published the eighth issue of HS News, a newsletter she writes every two weeks for the home school community in Parkes.

“People have started asking me for the newsletter,” said Rebekah, who has also learned to use Publisher to get her newsletter print ready. “I like seeing other kids read it, it makes me happy.”

Rebekah said she tried to cover different topics that would interest kids. “I like to write about stuff kids will like and that will make them smile.”

She also includes upcoming events, and is currently running a competition to design a logo for the home school group. She has roped in her talented brother Samuel to do a cartoon strip in every issue.

“It is a struggle sometimes to think of what to put in the newsletter. That is why I’ve decided to create a special email address and ask my readers to contribute to the paper or send me items they would like to see in the paper.”

Mum and teacher, Leah Knowling said Rebekah was not very fond of English and writing, so she decided to give her the assignment of compiling a newsletter. “It just took off, and now she is really into it, and her spelling and writing have improved in leaps and bounds.”

Rebekah, who has set her sights on becoming and anime animator one day, now even considers journalism as an alternative. “I try to do a professional job although I am still a kid.”

With some valuable input from mum’s journalism experience, Rebekah’s HS News is surely looking good! “I don’t intend to give up on this very soon!”

The NSW Returned Services League (RSL) of Australia announced that ceremonies for Anzac Day in the Parkes Shire would be able to go ahead this year.

Local Parkes RSL Sub-Branch Secretary Paul Thomas said this was a great result and example of how RSL NSW works with state and federal governments to improve outcomes for veterans and their families.

The Parkes Sub-Branch confirmed the special guest of honour would be Air Vice Marshall (Rtd) Leigh Gordon OAM, AM. Leigh is a former local who completed his schooling at Parkes High School. He commenced an engineering degree at the Goo-bang Shire Council before joining the Royal Australian Air Force. Leigh will also visit the Parkes High School to address students.

Highlights of his career include Head of Aerospace Systems Division in the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) in August, 2013 and Head of the Joint Strike Fighter Project delivering the fifth generation F-35A Lightning II to the RAAF.

Leigh was awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) this year for his distinguished service in responsible positions in acquisition and sustainment of aerospace systems for the Australian Defence Force, following his appointment as a Member of the Order of Australia (OAM) in 2015.

This year’s Anzac Day is significant with the 100th anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force and the contribution of Parkes with personnel including Air Marshall Leslie Bruce Fisher, who was the Chief of the RAAF for four years. Both Leigh Gordon and Osborne rose to the rank of Air Vice Marshall. Parkes also produced Flight Officer Rawdon Middleton, a Victoria Cross recipient, and Pilot Officer Colin Francis Hendry, a Distinguished Flying Cross awardee.

The Programme of Events for the Anzac Day celebration will include all the traditional items, as well as the announcement of the winners of the Anzac Biscuit Cooking competition.

The ban by Facebook last Thursday of all Australian news content, meant The Parkes Phoenix news stories were cut off from a large percentage of our readership.

Fortunately for us the ban did not last too long and our page was restored late Tuesday afternoon.

While we are back to business as usual for the time being, we would like to remind you that we are accessible on various other media sources like Instagram and email, and of course our website.

So if you want to make sure you can always find our stories online keep the following in mind, and as a backup, we would recommend you sign up for our email service to receive the paper in your inbox every Friday morning.

Simply go to our website (www.parkesphoenix.com.au) and scroll to the bottom of the page to subscribe. You can also follow us on Instragram (theparkesphoenix).

You can always pick up a copy of the paper every Friday around town at all the supermarkets and various other businesses.

It is amazing how much educational value there is in the building of a solar light as a group of home schoolers discovered in Parkes this week.

The local home school community joined the SolarBuddy project on Wednesday putting together 25 solar lights for kids in energy poor countries.

Leah Knowling, who organised the structured activity for the group’s regular Wednesday get together at Lions Park, said when the Home Education Association called for participants in the project, she liked the idea of getting the Parkes group involved.

On Wednesday children from aged 7 to 15 sat down to assemble the lights that will possibly be send to Cambodia. To finish off the project, each participant wrote a letter to the child who will be using the solar light.

Leah said SolarBuddy would send them a video showing the kids when they open up their lights for the first time, and they would be getting return letters as well.

“It was fun doing it,” said Ayrton Fowler (14). “We read up about the Afar people in Ethiopia this morning. As they are nomads, these lights would be very useful to them.”

Carmel Kelly (11) said the lights would be good for kids who wanted to study at night. “I enjoyed being able to help them, and I learned about technology.”

Leah said the activity was not only a great STEM exercise, but included some history, geography and English, while the kids also learned about the importance of kindness. “It is a fantastic exercise and I would encourage all schools to get involved.”

SolarBuddy is an Australian charity with a big dream to gift six million solar lights to children living in energy poverty by 2030, to help them to study after dusk and improve their education outcomes.