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Pat’s hobby is a gem Sunbury repair cafe is helping to restore treasured pieces of jewellery through the help of a local volunteer. Jewellery repairer Pat Dunn volunteers at the cafe every month to repair and remodel jewellery to help stem the ‘throw away’ mentality of today’s society. Ms Dunn said she is passionate about jewellery and was able to fine tune her repair skills in COVID-19 lockdowns. “I’m one of these people who have always had a love of jewellery,” Ms Dunn said. “When COVID-19 hit I had tons of beads and spare jewellery parts … so I started watching YouTube videos on jewellery, and jewellery repairing. “I was making and fixing jewellery and watching hundreds of hours of videos … there’s a wealth of knowledge out there.” Ms Dunn said has found volunteering at the repair cafe rewarding. “People come in with broken family jewellery … [and] it’s really minor fixes that can bring it back to life,” she said. “To bring some skills that other people don’t have … it’s very rewarding … [especially in todays]’... throw away society, we’re trying to correct that.” Ms Dunn receives help from a local jeweller, Rachael McCarthy, to confirm her jewellery evaluations for residents.
PAT DUNN
Service centre reprieve By Zoe Moffatt The Woodend Customer Service Centre will remain open with reduced hours, following community disapproval at its proposed closure. Macedon Ranges council voted to keep the centre open at its meeting on June 28, with a reduction in hours to noon to 5pm, two days per week, from August 1. This decision follows 24 community submissions disagreeing with a council recommendation to close the centre, which had low in-person interaction compared to
the larger administration centres. Deputy mayor Jennifer Anderson said council has to take into account everything it does, including its services in the budget, but the reduction in hours is a good solution. “We really have to examine everything we do including the services, we have to examine it in a thorough way across the entire shire,” Cr Anderson said. “We’ve listened to the community … the service users were telling us how important to them at the moment this service is and why. “I know we will continue to monitor it
and this is a really good solution … that is evidence based, safety based, practicality, finances, everything has been taken into consideration. “It really does show the importance of community putting in a submission.” Cr Mark Ridgeway agreed that reducing the operation hours ensures the needs of the community are still met. “I want to thank the officers for listening to the community … and coming back with a proposal rather than actually to do away with the Woodend Customer Service Centre,” Cr Ridgeway said.
“That gets around the problem that we were facing, whereby we were getting a lot of reduced usage of the centre but still meets the needs of the community. “We do know that we’ve got a number of people in Woodend who would really struggle accessing council services with the use of the facility within the township.” Some of the feedback included that face-to-face interactions are preferred and more effective, the closure of the service would increase distrust in council and harm the town, and travelling to another town for the service is not convenient.
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