STUDENTS from Rosebud Secondary College have used dance to illustrate the tragedies of the Holocaust. They performed “One Of Us” during the annual Wakakirri story-dance challenge at Frankston Arts Centre where students create seven-minute pieces incorporating dance, drama, costume, lighting, set, music and song. The college’s dance piece followed the story of two Jewish sisters being torn apart by the Holocaust, the state-sponsored persecution and killing of millions of Jews by German’s Nazi regime and its collaborators. Leaders and choreographers of the college’s Wakakirri piece, Sophie Armstrong and Alexandra Dellaportas, said they hoped highlighting the importance of talking about history…
Day: September 14, 2015
THIRTEEN soldiers from the Sorrento area lost their lives at Gallipoli and the Western Front during World War I and an amateur historian from Blairgowrie will head off later this year to place crosses on the graves of five of those 13 killed in action in France and Belgium. Peter Munro has been researching the lives of the “13 Sorrento boys” who died on foreign fields and only six have known graves. The other seven are commemorated on memorial walls at Lone Pine, Villers-Bretonneux, The Menin Gate and Fromelles. Five of the six graves are in the Somme and Flanders…
A NEW York-based philanthropic fund is helping finance a new employment skills program to help up to140 locally unemployed young people in Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula. The unveiling on Friday of the new Brotherhood of St Laurence program, Creating Futures for Youth, coincided with the release of figures showing youth unemployment in the area was nearly 20 per cent. The program – funded for 12 months by the New York-based Citi Foundation – offers career guidance, work placements and job search training from the Brotherhood’s Frankston headquarters, the High St Centre. The program, which will reach out to local…
WORK on the Arthurs Seat Skylift is set to begin on 5 October, according to Parks Victoria. The sites of the upper and lower stations will be fenced off to allow for tree removal and excavation. Parks Victoria’s Libby Jude has said the public will be notified of the works, and of alternative picnic areas, in through newspaper advertisements in coming weeks. Ms Jude, district manager for south-east Melbourne, says school bus pick-ups and drop-offs will be relocated at Seawinds Gardens car park near the public lavatories for the construction period of up to 18 months. This is more than…
THE “advocacy organisation” GetUp has a planned campaign to keep up the pressure on Flinders MP and Environment Minister Greg Hunt over threats to the Great Barrier Reef from coal exports. Mr Hunt last week accused members of a GetUp protest of upsetting and intimidating a staff member at his Hastings office. But one of two men who carried a crate of coal into the office on Wednesday alleges the version of events as outlined by Mr Hunt is “far from the truth, an incredible fabrication”. Simon Hawking, of Somers, said Mr Hunt’s reaction was “disappointing and so misleading”. Mr…
A BIG crowd turned out on 5 – 6 September for the second running of the Mornington Running Festival, incorporating the Mornington Health & Lifestyle Expo. Over 1300 participated in the run and over 5000 people visited the Health and Lifestyle Expo over the weekend. In it’s first year last year, the event saw just over 400 competitors participate. In just 12 months, the event has grown three-fold, with runners participating over four race distances. “It was a huge effort, and fantastic to see a boutique local event receiving so much support from the local community as well as the…
NEPEAN LEAGUE SOMERVILLE will play Rosebud in the Nepean League grand final this Saturday at Frankston Park after bouncing back and beating Sorrento in the Preliminary Final. The Eagles led all afternoon and finished strongly, booting 3.6 to 1.1 in the last quarter to record an 18-point victory, 11.22 (88) to 10.10 (70). It was the end of an era for Sorrento. The most powerful team of the past decade failed in its attempt to play in its eighth grand final in a row. Sorrento also said goodbye to coach Troy Schwarze, who retired at the end of the game…
PENINSULA LEAGUE FRANKSTON YCW advanced straight through to the Peninsula League Grand Final in a fortnight after holding off a fast finishing Mt Eliza on Saturday at Frankston Park. The Stonecats were outscored six goals to seven after quarter time, however, still ran out comfortable 22-point winners, 11.13 (79) to 8.9 (57). As is often the case at the Kars St oval, the wind was storming off Port Phillip Bay and charging towards the Kars St end – the end Frankston YCW kicked to in the opening quarter. The Stonecats took advantage of the conditions, booting five goals to one…
ACTORS Ella Cannon and Brooke Satchwell say they are thrilled with their roles in the mock-reality show Footballer Wants a Wife. Described as a parody of The Bachelor Australia 2015 it premiered at the Astor Theatre, East St Kilda, Monday last week, and was released online the same evening. It is accessible via the Bendid youtube channel and is claimed to be Australia’s biggest-ever web series. The first three episodes are online and the final three will be released today (Tuesday). The live premiere attracted 700 people to watch celebrity appearances on the red carpet. Cannon, who attended Woodleigh School,…
A DISGRUNTLED French Islander who allegedly threatened to “blow up” the Stony Point to Tankerton ferry, Thursday 3 September, has been arrested and charged with making threats to kill. Police have also raided the man’s home and seized several firearms. Two uniformed police travelled on the ferry that afternoon to protect passengers from any possible threat. The man, 60, who is alleged to have made the threats, has been bailed to appear at Frankston Magistrates’ Court in January and banned from using the ferry. It is understood the man is a pensioner and has written to Hastings MP Neale Burgess…
COMPLAINTS about delays and cost increases may lead to a postponement of the implementation of new rules for building in flood prone areas of the Mornington Peninsula. Councillors were told in June that new flood maps were an improvement and that 20,000 properties were no longer designated as flood-prone and more could be removed from that designation as work proceeded. However, an “experienced builder on the southern peninsula” has now told council officers that the new flood map system “instantly stopped $2 million worth of my work, frustrated me and my customers and had a net result of costing my…
THE Point Nepean quarantine station will not be reopened to provide sanctuary for refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria despite suggestions last week it could be a suitable base for asylum seekers. Liberal state opposition leader Matthew Guy had urged Labor Premier Daniel Andrews to consider housing some Syrian refugees at the Point Nepean station “at the end of the Mornington Peninsula” early last week. “In 1998-99, the Kennett government and the Howard government managed to bring many hundreds of Kosovar refugees to that site,” Mr Guy said. “If Daniel Andrews won’t do anything with that site then we should…
SECONDARY students and primary pupils from throughout the Mornington Peninsula took a break from their normal classrooms on Thursday to discuss ways of solving the world’s environmental problems. More than 250 students and pupils from 11 schools and colleges were at Point Nepean National Park as part of the national Kids Teaching Kids Week. Around Australia the week sees 55,000 students putting the environment and its challenges under the microscope. In the months leading up to their Point Nepean visit students prepared by making presentations on the dilemmas and solutions to such issues as conserving fossil fuels, protecting endangered marine…
THE leader of a mosque at Langwarrin believes a vendetta is being waged against his congregation. Imam Syed Wadood Janud said three men were attacked at the mosque by intruders at about 9pm on Friday 4 September, leaving one victim with a broken nose and the others with facial injuries. The Bait-ul-Salam Mosque in Leisureland Drive is the Victorian headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, an Islamic movement whose members are persecuted by Muslims in some other countries, particularly Pakistan. Members of the community were said to be in shock at the cowardly attack and security at the mosque is…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire’s Dial-A-Bus service is 10. Starting with three passengers – collected by the shire’s aged and disability transport team leader on her way to work – it has grown into a dial-up service to all areas of the shire servicing 520 regular passengers. It offers those aged over 60, or those of any age who have a disability (and their carer), a door-to-door transport option across the peninsula. Around 70 Dial-A-Bus passengers celebrated the service’s 10th birthday at the shire’s Rosebud office on Thursday 3 September. The mayor Cr Bev Colomb said the first Dial-A-Bus service began collecting…
MORNINGTON Peninsula Shire councillors are being urged to pressure the federal government into giving East Timor the chance to earn billions of dollars from undersea gas fields. “It is disgusting for a wealthy advanced country like Australia to literally steal part of a rich gas field from one of the poorest, least developed and needy nations on earth, Cr Tim Rodgers said. On Monday Cr Rodgers was set to tell council colleagues that it was time Australia entered into a more equitable agreement so that East Timor (Timor-Leste) received a greater share of profits from the rich offshore gas fields.…