A quick "Congratulations" to the Winchelsea Lions Club incoming President, Murray Bennett, who takes over from Graham Kenafacke. The changeover dinner featured awards, a review of the year, and a visit by Sergeant Nala from VicPol - their new mascot created with the help of our district's Lions Clubs. Service clubs may not shout about it much, but they do an incredible amount of good in our communities across the Shire.
Another stand-out event to which I was honoured to be invited was the Good Friday Appeal's "Thankyou" held in Torquay. Not only did we hear about the funds raised across the southwest, equally importantly we hear about how those funds are being used (and distributed beyond the Melbourne Children's Hospital across the State). In our Shire, we saw Kerrie at Winchelsea SES drive around $8,000, Doug & Laurel in Gherang raise $15,000 and the Torquay Lions across the year add $85,000 to their lifetime total of $300,000. Amazing work by all. In our region, the funds went not only to equipment but also training to spread and localise capability. Well done to all involved.
You may have seen that Council has just committed to pursuing a revised libraries service due to changes in State law requiring a different legal structure to Geelong Regional Libraries Corporation. While it is expected that the library service we receive will largely remain the same, the constitution and governance model are now being developed. In parallel with this are investigations into how a library service is provided e.g. in Winchelsea. I'm looking forward to seeing what options are presented in due course.
There's a couple of opportunities for you to tip in your opinion, and I encourage you to take advantage. Always good to have Winchelsea viewpoints in these things, even if the items aren't of earth-shattering impact. A quick check at
yoursay.surfcoast.vic.gov.au and you can see what's open - an Events Policy, and if you're quick (4th August) the Engagement Policy.
'Did You Know' - all Councillors are required by the State to sign a Model Councillor Code of Conduct that sets out expected behaviour. Interesting that State & Federal MPs aren't required to do the same! You can find it on the Shire website Councillors page at
surfcoast.vic.gov.au/About-us/Council/Councillors. Of note? Every Councillor should act for ALL in our municipality, and should not discredit Council or diminish trust in local government. The State is now looking at something similar for Governance Rules (how meeetings are run etc.). We'll see where that goes, there's been a bit of a side-track at State Government of late (!).
Great to see a full room for Growing Winchelsea's recent recap of the Winchelsea Place Plan, and the next steps. I eagerly await the first view of the consequent Winchelsea Structure Plan (the "what goes where" detail), although it's been slowed down a bit. This is due to the unexpected workload arising from Torquay's Messmate Road developments going through the State's fast-track process that could short-circuit Shire wishes.
