A NEW multi-agency taskforce has been launched to accelerate hazard reduction and better protect communities across NSW. Launched by the NSW Government, Taskforce Fire Guard will bring together fire agencies and land managers to strengthen coordination and prioritise high risk areas over the coming months. Operating from the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) State Operations […]

Volunteers will upgrade gardens and pedestrian areas. Photos: supplied. Volunteers will upgrade gardens and pedestrian areas. Photos: supplied. What the HNTGPA hopes the area will look like after the work. Photos: supplied. What the HNTGPA hopes the area will look like after the work. Photos: supplied. THE Hawks Nest Tea Gardens Progress Association (HNTGPA) has […]

FIVE animal rehoming organisations across the Hunter are sharing in more than $150,000 in funding, delivered as part of the first round of the NSW Government’s $6 million Companion Animal Welfare and Rehoming Grants program. This funding will support projects like the construction of a new cattery, and subsidising desexing, microchipping and vaccination. Successful grant […]

INDIGENOUS community members are invited to nominate for MidCoast Council’s Aboriginal Reference Group. The reference group provides an opportunity for an Aboriginal voice to guide Council on strategic decisions that affect the Aboriginal community. “The key focus of this group is it improve outcomes for Aboriginal people in the MidCoast region,” Council’s Manager of Libraries, […]

THE NSW Government is encouraging young women and girls in the Hunter to seek opportunities in emergency services through the Girls on Fire program. Girls on Fire received over $180,000 in funding under the government’s Investing in Women grants, to provide teenage girls in regional and remote areas with a hands-on, practical program of what […]

Local events, such as recent Easter raft races, are held at the base of the landmark pine. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. Severe erosion is undermining a rock wall at the base of the tree. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. Some of the local volunteers restocking the planter under the pine tree. Photo: Clare Mason. Local volunteers at work […]

HUNTER-BASED sailor and death doula Ruth Boydell has released a memoir, “Rocking the Boat: A Life in Three Voyages”, outlining global ocean adventures in the days before GPS and chartplotters. Ruth’s story begins at the age of 17, when she joined a thirty-something Englishman who was single-handing a sailboat around the world. The adventures came […]

Tea Gardens Red Cross members knitting Trauma Teddies in March. Photo: Elizabeth Fenton. Some of the Trauma Teddies produced by Tea Gardens Red Cross. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. Jane and Narelle from Tea Gardens Red Cross share the comfort that Trauma Teddies bring children worldwide. Photo: Thomas O’Keefe. TRAUMA Teddies, those vital comforters that help children […]

HAVE you ever wondered who the first astronomers were? What an interesting question. Astronomy is the oldest science, but it’s also the newest. Everything we know about the night sky has been passed down through history, and we find the oldest continuous culture on Earth, the Australian Aboriginal people, were very likely the world’s first […]