Five members of the Parkes Shire Concert Band (PSCB) will travel to Leeton this month to play at the 5th Leeton Outback Band Spectacular. PSCB members have been attending this event since its inception. December is fast approaching when the band will be performing at various events.

These are the Christmas Street Parade and the Christmas Carols. They will also do their usual December Saturday morning performances for shoppers. In January the PSCB will be leading the 25th Elvis Street Parade. If any musicians out there plan to be in Parkes for this big weekend, contact Duncan Clement if you’re interested to play in the parade.

The PSCB annual community concert in September was a big success. It was the second year in a row the band invited the local Lachlan Community Orchestra (LCO), singing group Tapestry and soloist Gordon Richter on the clarinet to perform with them. The grand finale of the concert combined LCO and PSCB playing Amazing Grace with music director Duncan Clement conducting and playing the bagpipes!

Other community commitments included playing at the Christian School Spring Fete and the Classic Car Club. If you would like to join the band, contact Duncan. Rehearsals are on Tuesdays from 7 to 9pm during school term. PSCB are keen to playout more in the community, so let them know if you have an event. Contact Duncan Clement on email duncanclement@ hotmail.com or 0405 035 164.

The group exhibition, 3 Stone Fire; Sharing the HeARTh, kindled plenty of inspiration last weekend. Around 200 local art lovers attended Friday night’s opening celebration at the Parkes Library’s Coventry Room, with dozens more visiting over the weekend. The exhibition was a collaboration between three local artists, Rosalie Burns from Forbes, and Parkes’ own Maralyn Nash and Jo Laurie. The trio had planned the exhibition to coincide with the Artlands Regional Arts Festival that was held in Dubbo last week as they wanted to bring the celebration of art to our community.

Margaret Jones drew on her impressive career in education to deliver a rousing opening speech that reflected the importance of art and culture in the community. Although art is often seen as an individual pursuit, it plays an important role in bringing people together and reflecting who we are. While many would expect an exhibition
by professional artists to be a formal affair, this exhibition offered a more immersive approach to the practice. Whilst the artists’ work was displayed in the traditional sense, there was also an intentionally interactive component to the exhibition.

The community weaving project invited visitors to choose a strand from a basket of different threads and fibres and weave it into an evolving piece on a loom, providing a symbolic representation of the notion of community. One Thousand Bells of Gratitude asked visitors to write a note of gratitude, which was then tied to a bamboo structure.

Many others participated in the family art workshops. Tapping Your Roots, allowed budding artists to use clay or collage to celebrate their connection with family. Red Bend Catholic College student Molly Cowan entertained the crowd with a live music performance, which helped to build the vibrant and joyful atmosphere that was enjoyed by the guests.

The exhibition centered on the theme of purpose through unity. It borrows from the traditional practice of using three stones to balance a cooking pot over a campfire, where the fire burns hotter in the space between the stones. The artists saw themselves as the stones, each with their own strengths and differences and the fire of creation burnt stronger between them, demonstrating the power of women working together.

Aside from raising spirits, the exhibition also raised funds. The artists collected $700, which Quota will donate to the Forbes Women’s Refuge. Rosalie said that she was absolutely filled with gratitude for the overwhelming response.
“We were all thrilled and so happy to be able to offer a significant donation to the women’s refuge from a supportive community,” she said. The artists also acknowledge the in-kind support from the Parkes Shire Council.

The exhibition closed with a ceremony involving meditation and drum healing, which also paid tribute to the healing power of art. Jo practices Reiki and massage, and Maralyn is a qualified art therapist. “Art is an amazing communication tool,” Maralyn said. “It is a bridge across cultures, classes, genders and generations.”

By Raen Fraser

Karen Creith, launched her second book last Thursday night at the Parkes Services Club. Surrounded by friends, suppliers and family Karen and John released Home Sweet Home to an enthusiastic response. This is the second book Karen has written and follows on from the success of her coffee table book, The Art of Fluffing.

The latest book is jam packed with valuable and easy to follow information that will help to eliminate stress whether you are a home decorator, renovator or a first time builder. Karen covers all the key areas of planning and selecting finishes for your home, as well as how to add the final styling touches to your home.

Karen always keeps her tips extremely simple and accurate, and for the first time, includes her own Little Black Book directory to enable you to connect with all the local contractors and stores that you will need when you are ready to start work on your project. Karen and John combined on the book and it was obvious from their thanks to each
other that they are a real team who work, live and play together. Priced at $19.99, it is perfect for the Christmas stocking of all home decorators, renovators and builders.

By Cheryl Newsom

Parkes joined the rest of the country on Tuesday to get dressed up with hats or fascinators included, have lunch and watch the Melbourne Cup. The Railway Hotel laid out a spread in its brand new Hart Bar, while the Parkes Services Club (PSC) hosted a lunch for about 75 women in collaboration with Quota International Parkes.

Quota had a raffle and raised more than $500 for their charity projects. There were also prizes for best dressed, won by Penny Downes and Isabel Orange, while Bev Laing won the prize for the best fascinator. Lisa McHattan of the Little Black Dress was the fashion judge. Lucky door prizes and raffle prizes, donated by PSC, were won by
Lola Flint, Pam Patrick, Lisa McHattan and Narelle Pizzaro, as well as Colleen Staples, Jeanette Simpson, Narelle Pizzaro, Sue Nichols and Colleen Carter.

Last week many usually quiet streets around Parkes were transformed into a spooky labyrinth of cobwebs and pumpkins, and were overrun by diminutive witches, pint-sized skeletons and creepy clowns as locals made their own Halloween fun. Halloween has been a popular celebration in the northern hemisphere for hundreds of years, but the freakish festival is slowly catching on down under.

In Parkes, this year’s Halloween celebrations were shared between small pockets of communities, where participating households decorated their homes with spookythemed props, or placed an orange balloon on their mailbox, and then waited for the trick-or-treaters (and guardians) to come knocking. By evening the streets were swarming with gangs of happy little terrors, eagerly clutching their loot as they skipped to their next target.

There were plenty of treats, but one or two tricks as well. The usually charming Andrew Cusack transformed himself into a ghastly ghoul and jumped out at any unsuspecting trick-or-treaters who ventured too close. Some neighbourhoods opted to stage their “trick or treating” on Saturday night, while others were overrun with ghoulish fun last Monday, as Halloween is observed on the 31st of October.

Joanne, Owen, and Hannah Strom were eagerly awaiting trick-or-treaters on Saturday. They’d begun decorating for Halloween two days earlier, and had transformed their idyllic acreage into a spooky spectacle to delight the little demons who came knocking. Trick-or-treaters had to brave the long driveway which they’d lined with cobwebs, and ghosts. Prop-skeletons, gravestones, and hand-carved jacko’lanterns, completed the look. While Joanne’s love
of Halloween was imported from her native Canada, she said the neighbourhood had been trick-or-treating together for at least ten years.

If the hordes of trick-or-treaters were anything to go by, it seems that there are a lot of little locals who have also been bitten by the Halloween bug.

Parkes residents have a rare opportunity to listen to two internationally renowned speakers next Saturday at the Celebrating Neurodiversity event. Chris Ulmer from Florida, USA is a special education teacher who founded Special
Books by Special Kids (SBSK) wanting to share the unique talents and incredible personalities of the students in his special education classroom with others.

The second speaker is Tim Sharp, an internationally acclaimed 28-year-old artist from Brisbane, most famously known for his creation of a superhero called Laser Beak Man. Tim has autism and at age eleven he invented Laser Beak Man. Tim is the first person in the world with autism to have his art turned into an animated television series screening on the ABC and internationally through the Cartoon Network. There is an exhibition about Tim in the National Museum of Australia. His story has been on Australian Story. The event is at the Parkes Leagues Club from 2 to 6pm. Tickets can be booked at www.parkesleaguesclub.com and are $65 which includes a delicious afternoon tea.

All profits from the event will go towards supporting the projects that the Central West Autism and Special Needs Awareness Group are working on achieving to benefit the children with autism and other special needs in our community.