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.

After such a dreadful storm last Friday evening, the St George Flower Show and Market offered a burst of colour to lift everyone’s spirits. Behind every event organised in Parkes is a great group of people who make it all happen. The cheerful volunteers at St George were no exception, working hard to ensure the flower show was a blooming success.

While the storm might have shaken a few branches, the unusually wet winter and spring certainly benefited the blooms. The Irises climbed to heights unseen for many years, and roses were the best they have been. Southern Cross displayed a beautiful range of roses, and the Red Bend Catholic College picked the finest from their college
garden. The winner of the Peoples Choice for the single bloom was Lucinda Auld. Her grandmother Margaret McMillan proudly accepted it on her behalf.

Mavis Moon was delighted to receive first prize for her collection of flowers with a bouquet of Double Delight Roses.
Alliance Pharmacy kindly donated the prizes, and the winners were thrilled by the lovely assortment of goodies. Discount Dave’s sponsored the lucky door prizes, which added to the fun on the day. Attendees were treated to a delicious tea provided by the Anglican Ladies. Vivian, Heather and Mavis were run off their feet as the demand for cakes and lamingtons was great.

The market stalls offered something for everyone, with a range of crafts and gift packages on offer and the Trash and
Treasure gave shoppers a chance to find an unexpected gem. Lorraine Chambers and her helpers had a plant stall that went on and on all day.

By Norma Garment

More than 400 people braved an icy cold wind on Saturday to create a festival atmosphere at the Northparkes Oval for the Parkes & Districts Relay For Life event. At the opening of the relay in the afternoon, organiser Renee Rice said the overnight section might be called off because of the strong wind.

Relay For Life is an overnight, team fundraising event that brings local communities together in the fight against cancer and to honour cancer survivors and their carers. After the opening ceremony cancer survivors and their carers did the first lap of the day after which it was open to the rest of participants to start doing laps. The Hope Ceremony with candles was held at 7:30pm after which the event was unfortunately called off and everyone packed up to go home.

A spokesperson of the Cancer Council NSW said this week they were possibly looking at re-holding the event in March next year. The relay is normally held every two years in Parkes. Despite the disappointment of the cancellation, the event still managed to create community spirit and support for everyone affected by cancer.

Andrew Cusack, who delivered the survivor speech, said the true heroes in our community were the cancer survivors and not sports champions. “We have to fight cancer every single day. Sports heroes do not have to do that.” He called cancer survivors warriors. “A warrior is someone with great vigour, courage and determination and so many people
with cancer fit this description perfectly.” He said there were many warriors in our community, “and I want everyone to remember that”.