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Vol. 5 No. 10
Autumn Edition 2015
Back where
we started
With the collapse of the State Government’s council amalgamation
plan, Palmyra is to remain part of
the City of Melville and Mayor
Russell Aubrey says that is a win
for the suburb.
Palmyra, Bicton and the Town
of East Fremantle were all to have
become part of an enlarged City of
Fremantle. While Palmyra and
Bicton residents had no choice in
the matter, a referendum was held
in East Fremantle and residents
comprehensively rejected amalgamation.
That killed off the whole amalgamation plan affecting Melville
and Fremantle and with similar
“no” votes in two other metropolitan referendums, the State Government has now abandoned its local
government reform plans.
“We were not in a battle with
the City of Fremantle,” Mr Aubrey
says. “We were non-predatory. We
didn’t want to get offside with Fremantle. But I believe the residents
of Palmyra and Bicton will be
much better off in Melville.
“Palmyra’s future as part of
Fremantle would have been contingent on the development of the
centre of Fremantle and none of
that is certain. The plans are there
but investment take-up is highly
questionable. Palmyra can be more
confident about the future with the
City of Melville.”
He says there were also concerns in Palmyra and Bicton about
access to the library and recreation
centre, which are on the wrong
side of what would have been the
Stock Road boundary between the
councils.
“They were built to service
Bicton and Palmyra and people
there were concerned about whether they could still continue to use
them after amalgamation,” Mr Aubrey says.
“It would have been difficult to
service them.”
But the mayor also has regrets
over the failure of the amalgamations to go ahead.
“It was looking as if we were
going to have a positive outcome
Changing times
Welcome to our autumn edition.
As the hot summer fades into a
mellow autumn, it is a time of
transition in nature and transition is our theme this issue.
All smiles in Melville: Mayor Russell Aubrey. Picture: Georga McMullen
but for purely political reasons
reform was abandoned,” he says.
In the short term, he sees a
bright future for Melville with the
doubling in size of Garden City
and the development of the Murdoch hub as evidence that the city
is on its way to becoming WA’s
“second city”.
The city having a healthy $80
million in reserves also “puts us
ahead of the game” and means
there is enough money to upgrade
infrastructure “without having an
impact on rates”.
He expects next year’s rates
increase to be probably about 4 or
5 per cent.
But he is worried about Melville’s longer-term population
growth prospects and the resulting
income from residential rates.
This story is sponsored
by Bradford Legal
His grandparents, Rosemary
and Gordon Marshall, first took
him to the Anzac Day service and
it was Mr Marshall who encouraged Riley to enter the Premier’s
Anzac Student Tour competition
for the trip to Gallipoli.
Entrants had to write an essay
on the topic, “In 1915, the Anzacs
bequeathed a powerful legacy to
future generations of Australians.
Examine the importance of this
legacy and what it means to you as
a young West Australian.”
There were 1000 entries and
Riley was one of 52 selected for
interview.
“When I was told I had been
selected, I almost couldn’t believe
it,” he says. “It was surreal.”
And the great-grandfather he
never met will be very much with
him every step of the way.
Mr Marshall was a teacher in
the Goldfields before the First
World War and in his early 20s he
signed up to join the 11th Batallion.
If the amalgamation had gone
ahead, he says Melville’s population would have grown faster.
Fremantle mayor Brad Pettitt
disputes Mr Aubrey’s comment
that Palmyra’s future as part of
Fremantle would have depended
on city centre development.
“While the amalgamation will
disappointingly not go ahead in the
foreseeable future I have no doubt
that the good people of Palmyra
will continue to go to Fremantle and use it as a key centre and
I’d encourage them to do so,” Dr
Pettitt says.
“I think this would have happened no matter which council they were part of so I wouldn’t
want to overstate the importance of
which council a suburb was in.”
“How strange that the nature
of life is change, yet the nature
of human beings is to resist
change,” says Elizabeth Lesser,
co-founder of the Omega Institute. “And how ironic that the
difficult times we fear might
ruin us are the very ones that
can break us open and help us
blossom into who we were meant
to be.”
So now that the nights are
drawing in, what’s to love about
autumn?
Australian poet C.J. Dennis
writes: “Yet Autumn is here like
another Spring, a ministering,
kindly season, healing the
wounds of that too ardent love
which Summer gave.”
And another Australian poet
Dorothea Mackellar describes it
as the “gentlest” and “kindliest”
season.
Read about transitions in St
Peter’s Church, Melville Theatre Company and a family’s
move back to Palmyra. All this
and more in this issue.
New job is baptism of fire
100 years on at Gallipoli
This year’s Anzac Day commemoration will be very special for 15year-old Riley Faulds. Instead of
going to Perth for the Dawn Service and parade, as he has been
doing since the age of two, he will
be at Gallipoli next month for the
Anzac centenary service.
The Palmyra teenager is one of
32 WA students chosen to attend
the event in Turkey and it means
he will follow in the footsteps of
his great-grandfather Francis Keith
Marshall, who was one of the first
Australian troops to land on the
fateful shore at Gallipoli in 1915.
“I’m looking forward to being
at the beach where my greatgrandfather and so many others
landed,” he says. “It will be amazing to be there 100 years on and to
see the sun rise — to see the same
landscape they would have seen.”
Riley, a Year 11 student at
Christian Brothers College in Fremantle, has a strong affinity with
the Anzac legend.
“I have been brought up with
great respect for what my greatgrandfather and the other troops
did,” he says.
www.palmyratogether.com
Trip to Gallipoli: Riley Faulds.
Picture: Georga McMullen
He went to Egypt for training and
then as a member of C Company
he was one of the first to land at
Gallipoli.
He survived the carnage for
about three months until he was
shot through the eye and went back
home to convalesce.
He wore an eyepatch for the
rest of his life but he still returned
as a sergeant to the Western Front
towards the end of the war.
On his return from Turkey,
Riley will give two talks about his
experiences — one at Fremantle
Rotary Club and the other at St
Patrick’s Primary School.
Sitting in his city office every day,
draughtsman
Brett
Jardine
dreamed of changing careers and
doing a job that made more of a
difference.
“I wanted to do something a bit
more rewarding,” he says.
“Something about helping people
and doing something positive.”
more than once, he points out —
and in the meantime he did six
months as a State Emergency Service volunteer at Murdoch.
In December he got his wish
when he graduated from the Fire
and Emergency Services Academy
and got his first posting as a qualified firefighter to Hope Valley.
Comparing his old and new
jobs, he says: “Driving home at the
end of the day when I have been
working really hard, it’s definitely
a lot more rewarding and there’s
greater job satisfaction.”
It really has been a baptism of
fire because the Hope Valley station has been busy this summer
with bushfires. But Brett, 28, from
Palmyra, says that he’s loving it,
even though it has been “non-stop”
and “busier than I imagined”.
He was part of a 24-man intake
at the academy and his 17 weeks
of training included practising
rescues, using breathing apparatus,
driving and pumping.
He stresses that he enjoyed his
work as a draughtsman but didn’t
want to sit behind a desk all day.
He considered the ambulance and
police services but the job of firefighter suited him better.
It took a couple of years before
he won a place at the academy —
applicants often have to apply
Out of the office: Brett Jardine.
Vol. 5 No. 10
Autumn Edition 2015
ww.palmyratogether.com
Kids have fun expressing themselves
By Susan Biggins
Our place: The family in their new home. Picture: Georga McMullen
Pally really is the
place to call home
By Pip Brown
For Jemma Sterrett and Steven
Holder, the lure of Palmyra’s
lovely old cottages, Sunday markets, community spirit, and proximity to Fremantle and the beach
was impossible to ignore.
After a six-year “tree change”
in beautiful Denmark, the family
have recently moved back to the
area and are enjoying their new
home, a three-bedroom character
weatherboard house in Tamar
Street.
They moved to Denmark in
2008 for a quieter, rural life but
found the demands of running a
bed and breakfast, an hour’s commute to Albany for work and raising two young children the opposite of what they expected. They
were busier than ever.
“Denmark is unbelievably
beautiful and it’s a great lifestyle
but it’s hard to find work in the
area unless you are prepared to
commute to Albany,” Jemma
says.
“It was a great experience but
ultimately we wanted to be close
to our family and I always wanted
to get back into Palmyra.”
Key to their transition back to
Pally has been Jenny Bradshaw,
of Ross and Galloway who helped
prior owners of the house, artists
Trudy and Andy Baker, of Mokoh
Design, find a new home.
She then presented the home
to Jemma and Steven knowing it
was perfect for them and their
children, Poppy and Solomon.
Jemma loves the artistic
touches the previous owners have
made on the house, the wooden
floorboards and the north-facing
windows which allow the morning light to stream in.
“Jenny was great, she knew
exactly what we wanted — the
house and the area have all the
character and sense of community
that we enjoyed in Denmark but
with the added bonus that we can
go to the beach every day and we
are close to our family and Fremantle,” Jemma says.
“We’re getting to know our
neighbours and the whole area has
a lovely feel about it.”
For more about communityfocused property experts Ross
& Galloway call 9333 5999 or
visit www.rossgalloway.com.
Police horses go to school
By Anne Christodulou
Palmyra Primary School had a visit last month from Sgt Wade Davis and the local area police team with their police horses. It was a
great opportunity for our students and we were very proud of them
as they were very respectful and well-mannered. It is a great initiative by the local police and we value our community partnerships.
Anne Christodulou is the school’s deputy principal
The MovingArt Studio and Gallery
has evolved from a long association between me and my business
partner, Bernadette McGill.
Our association with the Palmyra Primary School and the
broader Palmyra community began
four years ago when the first of our
grandchildren started at the school.
I now have three grandchildren
and Bernadette has two at Palmyra
Primary.
We both love this school, with
its vibrant and caring community.
We are so happy that we have been
able to contribute by donating art
to be sold to raise funds for the
school.
Also two pieces of art were
donated to raise funds for BeyondBlue. That was a great fun
day at the Pally markets.
We have started children’s after-school classes this year at our
East Fremantle studio. Both of us
are passionate about nurturing children’s artistic abilities by allowing
them to experiment, use their imagination and explore art in a fun
way.
At the end of each art term we
will hold an exhibition of the children’s work.
We might also have a marquee
at the Pally markets to display their
work.
Susan, left, and Bernadette at an art class. Picture: Georga McMullen
We are taking bookings now
for Term 2 which starts on
Wednesday, April 29 and runs for
eight weeks. Call Susan, 0402 508
249, or Bernadette, 0433 408 032,
for details.
For 17 years my husband,
Keith, and I ran a picture framing
business.
I worked closely with interior
designers, selecting and supplying
my artwork for building companies’ display homes.
This was also when Bernadette
and I met, becoming business associates and friends.
Bernadette owned a successful
business in Applecross supplying
fabrics, blinds and soft furnishings
to the building design industry.
Her background is fashion design.
She joined the art group of
which I was a member and we
have painted together ever since.
With our mutual love of modern design and art drawing us ever
closer, we decided to open our
MovingArt Studio in East Fremantle so we could display our art but
also have somewhere to work.
We operate the after-school
class on Wednesdays but will expand this to Tuesdays as well in
second term. We also operate evenings for adults to bring art they
may be working on, as well as
paints and brushes, and to use our
facilities. There is a small fee and
these nights run concurrent to the
children’s classes.
Susan Biggins,
www.susanbiggins.com
Course’s smart
way of living
By Kate Ringvall
In this new year of possibilities I
want to highlight some of the ways
in which we can all transition to a
more sustainable lifestyle, in small
and larger ways.
For households sustainability is
all about doing more with less and
reducing the things in our life that
no longer serve us, both physically
and even emotionally. After all, if
our internal life is in balance, we’re
far more likely to live a balanced
life externally.
By actively changing the way
we do things to become less wasteful of resources, we are transitioning to a more sustainable lifestyle
— whether it be introducing chickens to the family menagerie or a
worm farm to use up the organic
waste and provide valuable fertiliser to your garden or weatherproofing windows and doors to
reduce heating/cooling losses and
thereby energy use.
One of the ways to learn about
all this is by doing a Living Smart
course. Living Smart is a multiaward-winning behaviour change
program. The course gives participants the skills and knowledge to
Get smart: Michele Howard at the market. Picture: Georga McMullen
take action in their own homes to
improve their quality of life and
reduce their environmental impact.
The
seven-week
Palmyra
course starts on April 23, 6.309pm at Palmyra Primary School.
There will also be visits including
Jetto’s Patch, a Perth edible garden
on less than half an acre, the South
Metropolitan Regional Council
Waste Recovery Centre and a gardening day. It costs $70 per person.
Numbers are limited. To book
contact Michele Howard by phone
on 0413 171 101 or email [email protected].
The Living Smart program is
fun and interactive. You won’t be
staring at a PowerPoint presentation all night; but working in
groups, doing activities and sharing.
There are 10 key modules: simple living, water, power, waste,
gardening for biodiversity, gardening for food production, transport,
healthy you, healthy home and
community.
Michele, who lives in Palmyra
and has been attending the Farmers
Market since it first opened, completed a Living Smart course two
years ago.
She loved the program so much
she went on to be a facilitator and
joined the board. Living Smart is a
not-for-profit organisation.
She is a passionate advocate of
living your life more simply with
less impact on the environment and
being an active member of your
community.
Kate is director of Building It
Green sustainability consultancy.
Vol. 5 No. 10
Autumn Edition 2015
www.palmyratogether.com
New rector arrives
with an open mind
The new Anglican Rector of Fremantle is getting to know his parishioners at St Peter’s in Hammad
Street, Palmyra after taking up his
position only last month.
Rev Dr David Wood, 61, who
has moved from Grace Church,
Joondalup, is responsible for St
John’s, in the centre of Fremantle,
and the smaller St Peter’s.
He likes what he has seen of
the congregation at St Peter’s.
“They are really grounded and real
and there’s no, as far as I can tell,
politicking. What you see is what
you get. I like that kind of honesty.
I think they are prepared to take
me as I am and I am prepared to
call a spade a bloody shovel and
it’ll be alright.”
Father David was born in Melbourne and served in Victorian
parishes before moving to WA and
serving
at
Christ
Church,
Claremont and Grace Church,
Joondalup.
During his 14 years in charge at
Joondalup the diocese went into a
partnership with Perth Radiological Clinic and built on a churchowned block of land in the centre
of the city. It combines a radiological facility and three storeys of
specialist suites with a new purpose-built Grace Church.
“I come to the area fresh, with
no experience of Fremantle or Palmyra, with an open mind about
how best to provide for both ends
of the parish and with no detailed
plans or visions of possible futures
in my head,” he says.
Rather he sees himself as a
learner for at least the first year but
he is pleased that St John’s, the
city church, and St Peter’s, a suburban one, while quite different
from each other, complement each
New face: Anglican Rector Father David at St Peter’s Church. Picture: Georga McMullen
other and seem to be working
well together. “I want to build on
that in every way possible,” he
says.
One challenge in Palmyra is
whether or not it should have a
separate priest. In recent times the
church has had a priest associate or
curate but there is no-one at present, so Dr Wood has a hectic Sunday morning conducting services at
8 in Fremantle, 9.15 in Palmyra
and 10.30 again in Fremantle.
“I think there probably has to
be a priest whose main focus is
here so that they get the time and
attention that they need,” Father
David says. “I would come here
from time to time, but not every
Sunday. But I am really in a bit of
a dilemma about what’s best to
do . . . I would really miss it if I
wasn’t coming here.”
Despite troubled times for traditional churches, he remains
guardedly optimistic.
“I am convinced there has to be
a future for rational religions and
faith communities where people
don’t have to check their minds at
the door as they come in, where
they don’t have to pretend they are
living in some kind of fairy world.
“It’s not just churches. Synagogues, mosques, whatever —
there has to be a future for this
because there’s more to human
beings than economics and measurable things.”
Theatre company triumphs but there’s a dark cloud on horizon
Palmyra’s Melville Theatre Company scooped best play and best
director awards in a night of triumph at the prestigious Robert
Finley Awards for community theatre.
Last year’s production of
Twelve Angry Men won the top
honour, the Robert Finley Award
for best play. It is the second year
running the MTC has won the
award and the third time in five
years, making it arguably Perth’s
top amateur company.
The play’s director, Vanessa
Jensen, who is also MTC president, won the Susan Hayward
Award for best director. She also
won best director the previous year
for best play winner Rabbit Hole.
Sharon Greenock won the
award for other than lead female in
a play and her daughter, Juliett
Greenock, won the Brian Maddox
And the winner is: Vanessa
Jensen with best play and
best director awards.
Picture: Georga McMullen
Award for youth in a play (both
Relative Values). There were also
certificates for Tarryn Harris, Sean
Bullock, and Barbara Lovell and
Ross Bertinshaw.
The award-winning Twelve
Angry Men was a tough play because Vanessa was directing an allmale cast and 12 of them were on
stage the whole play. “I was
blessed,” she says. “I had a really
strong cast.”
Undaunted, Vanessa, who is a
drama teacher at Rostrata Primary
School and Penrhos College, will
direct an all-female cast in her next
MTC play in September, Love,
Loss and What I Wore. Her husband, Lars, who is performing arts
centre manager at St Mary’s Anglican Girls’ School, is also directing
the next MTC production — Peter
Shaffer’s Equus in May.
But there is some off-stage
drama at the company. It will probably lose its home at the Roy
Edinger Centre on Stock Road if
the City of Melville-owned site is
redeveloped.
“We have a big cloud hanging
over our head,” Vanessa says. “We
don’t know how long we have got
here. We are planning for this year
and next. We might even be here
longer. We would love to stay but
this is prime land.
“The council have been really
good in trying to rehouse us elsewhere.”
She describes the company as
being on a roll, building up its reputation and the quality of its productions and last year filling 73 per
cent of its seating capacity.
“So we are just going to carry
on like that and in the back of our
mind we know we are going to
have to move. So we are trying to
put money aside as a contingency
because it is going to cost a fortune
to move.”
A City of Melville spokesman
says that while the MTC site is a
strategic land holding and has been
identified as an “opportunity site”,
there are no current plans for the
sale or demolition of the Roy
Edinger Centre.
Anyone willing to help us pay for change to the recycled paper you’re holding right now?
If this newspaper feels different,
it’s because we have changed to
recycled paper. But it is costing us
more and we’re looking for a little
financial help to continue this environmental initiative.
We have been using a much
cheaper paper that’s common in
Australia but its origins are murky.
“I would say a lot of it is manufactured from old-growth forest or
regrowth at best,” says Peter
Kissick, owner of Artproof Printing who print this newspaper.
“It’s not specified where it
comes from. The supplier says it’s
from certified, well-managed for-
ests but that could mean anything,
quite frankly.”
The paper used for the first
time with this issue is Cyclus Offset. It is 100 per cent recycled from
post-consumer waste such as old
newspapers, magazines and printers’ waste with no chlorine used in
its bleaching process.
“It’s expensive but because
they try to protect the environment
there’s no wastage into waterways,” Peter explains. “The reason
it’s so expensive is that not many
mills are producing it. It’s a long
and arduous process producing it
without chemicals. It’s an unstable
fibre that has to be made stable
enough to run on a high-speed
printing press.”
As well as the paper doing less
damage to the environment,
Artproof is using eco-friendly soya
-based inks and printing on a press
which uses less electricity and less
water.
“The end result is much the
same as on the old paper,” Peter
says. “It’s just a little yellow because there’s no chlorine used in
the bleaching process with this
paper.”
Peter adds that the printing
industry generally is much more
environmentally aware these days.
At his own factory he has dramati-
cally reduced the amount of waste.
He etches plates with water rather
than acid and he is recycling all his
aluminium plates.
Artproof is already a generous
sponsor of Palmyra Together News
and we would welcome another
sponsor who was willing to help
the environment by paying the
extra cost of the Cyclus Offset paper. If you would like to help, contact Lisa O’Malley, 0433 433 077.
Vol. 5 No. 10
By Rachel Lawson
Last October I went with my family to Cambodia as part of a small
group called MAD4CAMBODIA.
MAD stands for Making A Difference and most of us were from
Fremantle SDA Church, Palmyra.
We had a variety of skills as our
ages ranged from 7 to 72.
We went to the Killing Fields
and Genocide museum. This was
to help us understand the sad history of Cambodia and why there is
so much poverty there today. It
was an intense day.
For three days we helped in the
construction of a new school at a
poor community. Money we raised
before the trip went towards this
large and important project.
Then we took a bus to a village
north-east of Phnom Penh called
Ko Ki, where we set to work mak-
Autumn Edition 2015
Cambodian visit spurs fundraiser
ing a hydroponics system for a
man who had no experience in
farming and was struggling to survive.
People in this village were
kicked out of their city homes,
dumped onto this farm, with no
farming experience and forced to
make a life out of what they had,
which was very little.
We finished the hydroponics
system in one day and we recently
heard that the man sold his first
lettuce crops and made around $8.
Not much for us but a lot for him.
It was a hot and sweaty day but
seeing the owner’s face at the end,
made it all worthwhile.
We made our way up to Siem
Reap where we ended our journey
Rachel selling T-shirts at the markets. Picture: Georga McMullen
with some Cambodian tourist attractions.
MP fights
school cuts,
road plan
By Simone McGurk
State Member for Fremantle
It’s been a great privilege to be
involved with the Pally community
since being elected to Parliament in
2013. The suburb has a real sense
of community, which this paper
and the farmers markets show.
I’ve been heavily involved in
campaigning against the education
cuts at all Fremantle schools, including those at Palmyra Primary.
Schools in my electorate have had
to absorb budget cuts of $1.6 million. The cuts translate to some real
damage to programs on the ground
— there are fewer education assistants and important early education
programs like literacy or behaviour
management have been axed.
In a period when we are coming
out of record economic growth,
having to cut schools shows real
budget mismanagement by the
State Government.
Schools are still working out
what a new funding model introduced this year will mean for them
but it’s galling that the Government
has chosen to pour nearly $2 million into advertising its new model.
While school budgets are taking a
hit, the school chaplaincy program
has been cut and Palmyra Primary
no longer has the counselling support it once had.
In Perth there has been a transition to a new policing model with a
more centralised system. Palmyra
is now the northern tip of a south
metro team that extends to Mandurah and Pinjarra. Some specialist
www.palmyratogether.com
While in Cambodia, I felt a
strong urge to do more for these
people after seeing how much they
needed help and what lovely people they genuinely are. I bought a
tie-dye T-shirt in Siem Reap and
came up with an idea.
When we got home, my mum
and I bought our first tie-dye kit
and some white, cotton T-shirts.
After watching a how-to video on
YouTube, we were off and away.
Within a month we had raised
over $100 for Cambodia by making T-shirts. We plan to grow our
little business so that we can keep
sending money back to the beautiful people we met in Cambodia.
You can buy one for yourself
or as a gift for someone. If not, we
welcome you to simply make a
donation. All the money raised
goes directly to the organisation
we worked with, called RAWimpact, which facilitates and initiates
sustainable community development projects. Its website is http://
rawimpact.org/.
If you are interested in buying a
T-shirt, please email [email protected]. To see the
shirts, follow my Instagram account @_tdsl. Prices range between $10 and $20. Or just look
out for me at the Palmyra Western
Farmers Night Markets.
I hope you can help me change
lives in Cambodia.
Clem Van Ballegooyen is pastor
of Fremantle Seventh-day Adventist Church, 0404 020 737,
[email protected] or visit
www.freochurch.com
Croquet’s
perfect fit
for Patricia
Anyone for croquet? It may not be
a high-profile sport but Palmyra
resident Patricia Brandish, who
has been playing for nine years,
can’t get enough of it.
“I was looking for something
to do and I saw this advert in the
paper,” she says. “I thought I
might try it. I did lots of sewing
and knitting but these are indoor
things. I thought I needed to get
out more.”
At the markets: Simone McGurk, right, with Palmyra Western Farmers Market managers Lisa O’Malley, left, and Karen Greenwood.
policing services have gone and I’d
like to hear your feedback on
whether it has meant a better or
worse police presence in Palmyra.
There are signs that Fremantle’s
future is looking up but it is crucial
that the State Government plays its
part in the economic revitalisation
of Perth’s second city. It must honour its 2012 commitment to move a
government department to Fremantle and commit funding to replace
or upgrade the Traffic Bridge.
The transition of Perth to a bigger city means we need improved
and better thought-out transport
plans. The congestion on Canning
and Leach highways, and increasingly on Marmion Street is bad, but
it should be of huge concern that
the Liberal State and Federal Governments want to push more trucks
onto our roads with their Perth
Freight Link plan.
This massively expensive ($1.5
billion) freeway will take more
trucks through our community and
important wetlands. It will be the
State’s first truck toll road and it’s
likely that industry will soon push
for the toll to apply to cars also
using the road. A toll also encourages trucks to use arterial roads and
rat runs through our suburbs.
Perth Freight Link is expensive,
ignores our real need for a second
harbour and ignores existing rail
infrastructure. Infrastructure projects like this are too important to
mess up. Check out my website
simonemcgurk.com.au or my Facebook page to follow our campaign
to stop this ridiculous road.
I regularly attend the Pally
Farmers Markets but if there are
other events in Palmyra you think I
should be involved in, please let
me know. If there are any issues I
can help you with, contact 9336
7000 or [email protected].
My office is at 8-12 Market Street,
Fremantle. Drop in and say hi.
Palmyra Together News is published quarterly by Palmyra Together community group and distributed free
throughout Palmyra. Editor Keith McDonald, Sponsorship & Distribution Coordinator Lisa O’Malley.
Email [email protected], phone 0412 056 725 or 0433 433 077, website
www.palmyratogether.com. Printed by Artproof Printing, Stirling Highway, North Fremantle.
Now the 78-year-old grandmother plays twice a week at the
East Fremantle Croquet Club in
Allen Street, next to the East Fremantle footy oval, and she would
love to play even more than that.
No matter whether it’s a hot summer’s day or a wet winter day, she
and her friends play on regardless.
“It’s not very energetic but you
are with people interacting with
them and they all have their stories
to tell,” she says.
Club members play two forms
of the game — association and
golf.
When Patricia first wielded the
croquet mallet, it was to have lessons in association croquet but
then she was introduced to the
other form which she found to be
much more fun.
The object of both forms is to
hit balls through hoops and players
can gain an advantage by knocking
opponents’ balls out of the way.
Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays are for golf and Tuesdays,
Thursdays and Saturdays are for
association. There are also coaching sessions.
The club is 108 years old but a
few months ago its future was in
Sporting life: Patricia Brandish
plays croquet in all weathers.
Picture: Georga McMullen
doubt because of a plan to build an
aged care facility, which would
have taken a hefty slice of its
courts as well as half the neighbouring bowling club’s greens.
Strong local resistance, including lobbying of the council by the
club, saw the plan abandoned.
It has 38 registered members
— there are 20 clubs in WA —
and nearly all the East Fremantle
members are aged over 50. There
is a strong social side with monthly barbecues.
The club, which provides
coaching, is keen to recruit new
members. According to its website, the game can be surprisingly
challenging and has appeal to all
ages.
“It’s not just ‘hitting a ball
through a hoop’. It’s not just for
‘oldies’,” the website says.
Club president Megan Fardon
says that there are secondary benefits, especially for older people.
“You are out in the fresh air,
on your feet and socialising,” she
points out.
“It is good for balance, you are
using your eyesight, thinking tactics and using your memory.”
To find out more, contact Megan, 0448 043 840 or email [email protected].