Join Rachael Goldsworthy on The Drive Home to Hawkesbury where she explores the benefits of attending the Wholistic Wellness & Spiritual Expo with Melissa Follington who provides Alternative & Holistic Health for people in the Hawkesbury. On the live stream we will discover why so many people love these Events and Rachael would love you to join Melissa and herself on Friday 12 noon and to say thank you for dropping by she will be giving away a special gift for your home to everyone on the Livecast. See you online soon.

I Live, Love, Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode.

I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and welcome to the drive home to Hawkesbury, where I believe every home has a story and I love sharing those stories on real estate in the Hawkesbury with you. Here we share the best ways to add value to your property, how to avoid the common mistakes people make when buying and selling property, and how to get the maximum return on your investment with a focus on supporting local business. I live love Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode. Let’s get started.
Good morning, good afternoon or good evening depending on what time you’re watching this broadcast. I Rachael Goldsworthy and I’m on the drive home to Hawkesbury and today I’m super excited because I’m joined by Melissa falling turn. How are you, Melissa? How are you? Yeah, really good. I’m. I’m super excited because we’ve got. We’ve had you on the show before and you gave us so much information about holistic living and being a little bit more spiritual and grounded and and to that aim with the segway through to the holistic wellness and spiritual expo that you’ve got coming up this weekend. Tell me about that.
Oh, it’s so exciting. It’s going to be amazing. Um, I’ve came together with one of my good friends who is the events manager at North Richmond Panthers and um, put together this wonderful event to really connect people with the holistic wellness lifestyle, um, and connects the industries, you know, the businesses in that industry as well. So it was kind of like a networking bit of education and inspiration for people. So it’s going to be fantastic.
That’s awesome. And I can hear kids in the background and I think that we can bring the kids on Sunday with this as well, can’t we?
Absolutely. It’s open for everybody. Men, women, children alike. Um, there’ll be a little bit of something there for everyone. So it’s not targeted to anyone. I’m just like group or anything like that. So there’ll be something there for everyone is going to be amazing.
No, that’s terrific. So can you give people a little bit of a secret, a little, a little bit of a letter of what’s actually gonna Happen? Who’s gonna be there? What are we going to learn?
We have so many. Well, we’ve got a very wide variety of vendors coming along, so apart from myself with the essential oils, um, I’m also going to be running a women’s circle table as well, so educating people a little bit more about connecting women, um, and yeah, just honoring that ancient tradition, that sacred tradition. Um, and then there is obviously going to be yourself. You’ve got you have a little next to me right next to you because I think that that’s where the jams going to be tomorrow and Sunday night. So hopefully we’ll have some really cool musicians playing and there’s going to be an opportunity for all the vendors to present if they feel like they’d like to do that. Um, we’re going to have some great talks, educational talks about the industry. We’ve got some kinesiologists, lots of crystal is massage. Um, we’ve got a show manic kind of native American stalls happening. So Tarot, reading, all that sort of spiritual staff, that’s going to be amazing.
It’s going to be awesome. The energy in that room. I can almost feel it already. I’ll just read it.
It’s amazing. I’m going to go in there and stage it all before we start, so it’s all good,
clear and it’s so important to clear that space and even with real estate in some of the homes that we look at, you know, selling for people or managing and the changeover of the energy from one to another. People don’t realize, and you will probably be able to tell people more so about this, but they don’t realize that everything’s energy. You know, your furniture’s energy, your energy, your house energy, what’s in your house is energy. So if you’ve got good vibes into the property or you’ve got a clean slate, when you go into it, you just feel great walking around and enjoying that space. Whereas if you’ve got yucky stuck, negative, awful energy, it can be a, you know, not the best art. So it’s always good as you say, decide the house before you get started. And I’m so pleased to hear that you’re going to be staging the stage and also the expo area so that everybody could have some awesome energy and really pick up on that, on the die. So that’s terrific. And um, tell me what, what is your, I mean your, your women’s circle, we’ve spoken about this before, you do this quite often and it’s such a great thing and I’ve heard some terrific feedback from the people that attend them. Tell the people listening that you know, may not know about what a women’s circle is and what’s the principle behind it and what can people expect to get out of attending a women’s circle.
Okay. So everyone will take something different depending on what they’re looking for and what they’re needing. I’m basically a women’s circle is a very lost ancient, sacred tradition where women come together and they do a number of things, you know, I mean ancient times, villages were run by women coming together and discussing all sorts of things happening with the village. Healings would take place. It’s a safe space to share and to celebrate milestones in life and to support each other through everything that happens in life. And so that’s what we try to, to put together in our women’s circles today, which just about connecting and I’m like, it feels like home to me, you know, facilitating this and holding space for women to come and shed the layers, shared this in and really live in their true authentic selves. Um, yeah, it’s a beautiful process.
Were you, like I said, you shared what you don’t need anymore and that leaves room to take on more positive aspects of life. Um, and so yeah, everyone gets something different out of it and each circle will be themed differently depending on what the moon’s doing or what I feel drawn to some. I’m putting together some at the moment working with crystals and the archangels, which is going to be beautiful. Um, but yeah, that’s that. It’s such a broad scope. I also do baby blessing way, so that’s kind of like rather than having a baby shower, it’s kind of like honoring the mother and that whole process that our bodies go through. It’s so beautiful. And you know, self matrimony and bridal circles and it. Yeah, the list is endless. You can do so much with it and it’s such a spiritually uplifting beautiful thing to do.
Yeah, no, I think that’s great. And I was watching the balloon go behind you with the kids up and down and and I think that that’s kind of like the energy with all of us at different times throughout their life. It can go up and down, but by having a women’s circle and coming to that women’s circle, I’m sure as you said, you can see those ways. You can talk about things. You can get it out there and then just new slate. Let’s go from this, let’s make things happen and I think people underestimate what you can achieve together as opposed to I’m going to do this myself and I’m just going to do this all align as opposed to somebody who wants to go on that same journey with you. Even though there might be on a different path, they still want to achieve the different things in their life, whatever that might be in it might just be sitting quietly with yourself over a nighttime for 10 minutes and being okay with it.
Absolutely, and that’s what society is like these days, you know, we’re so go, go, go, go, go all the time. And we are, we kind of are segregated from people in our village like in it used to take a village to raise a child and now we’re just doing it all by ourselves. So as women we tend to take on all these labels like mother wife, you know, boss corporate later or whatever, you know, whatever the labels are and said that by coming together in circle we get the opportunity to shed those labels and just be a woman and be in that divine feminine and it’s such a beautiful experience. You know, we have the meditation and the creating side of it and just being and finding, tapping into what really, what, who you are and what you want and when you actually stop and think about those questions, they’re quite profound and they’re quite triggering. But taking that time for yourself and you know, attending a weekly or fortnightly or monthly circle. So fulfilling, so fulfilling.
And if somebody wanted to get involved with the circles that you do, what would they expect? Would it be like an hour at a time or would it be a couple of hours or does it depend on, on the, you mentioned sort of weekly or monthly or quarterly, whatever, to tell us a little bit about that.
Okay. So generally my, my circles tend to run between 90 minutes and two hours depending on the theme and the content. Um, but every circle that you attend will be different. Obviously everyone brings different energy. All of my circles that I’ve run have all been completely different in the energy and everything, but it’s, you know, it’s, it’s very diverse. So if, if it was to say be a weekly thing, you know, you could probably the benefit of doing it weekly is it you really get to know and connect with the group that you’re doing it. So it’s not just like a one off where you might meet some amazing people and then that’s it. It’s kind of really it. It deepens that connection and that process. It’s really quite nice
and I guess trust increases as time goes by. It’s like any relationship, you, you spend that time into the emotional deposit bank and, and the more time that you spend with somebody, the more time you want to spend with them because you share things that maybe nobody else knows or are you, they’ve earned the right to know what you don’t know necessarily shared with everybody and it would just be a safe place to do that, which is terrific.
Yeah. It really is to become a container for whatever you know, you need to put into it. Really. Um, and yeah, it’s, it’s just, it’s something that you really need to experience. It’s such a beautiful thing and I’m so honored that I am able to, to bring this to women and to share this with women. You know, it was something that I was, I was looking for, but there was, I couldn’t find anything in my local area. So I thought, well, I’m going to do this. And I did my um, women circle facilitator course with image and Bailey and I was amazing. She’s a fantastic facilitator and leader and she’s an amazing woman. And honoring heart is her, um, her company there and she just does wonderful things with and for women. So if anyone’s interested in, in doing that, then I highly recommend it.
Big shout out to image and as she’s watching, um, and also I believe Sandra’s watching. Hi Sandra. She says hi mill and Rachel sees Sunday she’s coming along to the expo, which is, I go, no, it’s really exciting to have Sandra on. And also the other people that are here. Hi Barbara big hello to you. It’s kind of like romper room isn’t it to use and we’ll see you in the surf, but um, it’s a bit of fun and it’s a bit of, you know, um, I think it’s just sisterhood and as you said, miles aren’t excluded from it as well. I mean I’m sure it’s different places that we can all catch up and certainly the expo is all inclusive. So anybody that wants to come along on Sunday, I’ll be there on Sunday as well with mill hot seat right next to the mill and her crew and on bringing along with them.
And Michelle Segar, she’s also an expert in bowel biology. Her and her husband live in Castle Hill and she specializes in funkshway and also bound biology, which is all about the study of the home and that the healthy home and making sure that, you know, if you have mold issues, how that affects that child or that person in the house, the sickness that you find, um, you know, people think I, Carol moved into this house and I just can’t get rid of this cold or I’ve got this cough for hit eight that I just can’t move. And then when you start to analyze and you get somebody in like Michelle to have a look at the actual house, he goes, oh, there’s water coming through this wall or there’s a private sleeping or there’s some sort of mold in the area or you might be exposed to electromagnetic fields, which is causing you those headaches. And you wouldn’t even realize that if you weren’t told about those sorts of things. So it’s going to be fascinating having Michelle there. Um, I’ll, I’ll also be helping out with the funkshway and all things healthy homes. And, and happy homes as well because it’s all about making that environment really happy and you know, it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money to make it your own home and make it. That’s it, you know?
Yeah.
All about the energy. And also, um, you know, also about your oils even. I mean, I know in my office I’ve got a distressed oil that I use, I’ve got, you know, an uplifting oil. I’ve got to thinking oil, you know, and, and I should really talk to you about that more because I’d love to get you in to consult on what oils we should be using specifically because you’re the expert in that regard. And I think it makes a big difference. But when clients walk in Nice little site, the first thing they say, oh gosh, this place smells beautiful. What, what’s around here, what’s going on? And, and um, you know, you’re probably the best to speak to in that regards, but if somebody wanted to lift the energy of the price was sort of oil, would you suggest that they would use as a, you know, every day and maybe a special one for once a month or once every couple of weeks.
So all of our citrus oils are really, really uplifting. We have some beautiful blend in our range so you can just do the basics like wild orange or lemon or Bergamot. Bergamot is a beautiful, subtle but powerful oil. Um, and that also helps with, you know, self esteem and everything really making you, I’m very comfortable with who you are. So it’s uplifting, but it’s really relaxing at the same time. It’s kind of, it’s kind of like an earl grey tea. That’s exactly what it is, you know, it’s like the Burger Ma, it’s like uplifting but soothing. Um, and yeah, and then we’ve got some beautiful blends which is all of our psychiatrists who say elevation is one of my favorites and it’s called our joyful blend and it’s just, it’s literally joy, but always in a bottle. It’s a beautiful, um, but even like you pick them up so you minty scent and everything, they really uplifting thing. Everything pepe. Um, and again we’ve got some beautiful blends, but wild orange is actually been proven to boost sales and real estate agents. So there you go. Having wild orange in there in the foyer going on earlier, it’s been actually been scientifically proven. I can get your paperwork on it that it boosts sales. So
there must be something in that because when I went to the states everything was pretty much that and the biggest sales push that I’ve ever met, you know, they, they know how to sell things, they know how to market things and um, you know, obviously we get a spin off from that, but that’s really good advice. And maybe while I’m, while I’m always attracted to that orange scent because it’s a really special st and I think it’s, I love peeling an orange, always remember as a kid, and I don’t know about you, but my dad used to teach my sister and my brother and we all used to sit, stand at the kitchen sink and we all were given an orange and a knife and you know, we’re meant to create a toilet seat. I don’t know whether you had the same thing but you feel this way, but it is just try and peel the outside of the orange off and then we slowly got, you know, ripping bits of flesh off and everything along it.
Right. And you said, okay, the final piece is you’ve got to slice the top and then make a toilet seat. So that’s our mind. Okay. We’re making a toilet seat, so make a toilet seat. Yep. Perfect. Okay. Perfect. And I get the same from that is just boys love your lines or any urop. It’s kind of like even um, yellow writing peds. It’s for the creative in a yellow color that your habits for the brain, it makes you think creatively and get through into things. Same thing with citrus, obviously with the lemons and so I’m going to be fascinated with everybody that’s going to be out there on Sundance. Super excited because it starts at 11:00 is 11, 24 and we’re the pan.
Yeah. Yeah. We still have some spots available. If there’s anyone out there who has anything in the holistic wellness and spiritual, um, kind of industry that you’d like to showcase. Just I’m just trying to think how to do this. Probably best to jump onto seven, 10 essentials purely by nature and send me a private message and I can give you all the details. We actually really, really looking for a musician. Someone to come and play the guitar. Yeah. Just someone to come and um, promote themselves, you know, it’s a, um, it’s not a paid Gig, but it’s a really good chance at getting networking out there and getting future future bookings and stuff like that. And just to bring a really nice, cool rely of vibe. Yeah. Really Mellow, kind of poke and validated, so if there’s anyone listening out there, if you know anyone who’s good with a guitar and got a get a good set of pipes and then the my way or we’ll make it happen.
Exactly. Fair. And maybe your kids. I’m not too sure. Any of those people listening online that have a musician or a budding musician that wants to get out there and be part of the community for a very special day for the wellness expo. That would be awesome. Melissa, would love to hear from you. If people wanted to get in touch with you before the expo or after the expo. Melissa, how can they find you? What’s your website address?
Okay, so it’s probably best off instantaneous response through facebook worldwide,
like minutes, literally minutes if you
follow seven, 10 essentials, purity by nature. I’m anyone interested in the women’s circles side of it. It’s called white light to women’s circles and you can find us on there and um, give us a lock and a following. Send me a private message and I’ll get back to you pretty much straight away.
We’ve also got Janine lead online, how I, Janine, thanks for liking the program. She is a wonderful woman and such a wealth of knowledge. She’s actually the prison of the Australian chapter of the international team and I’m hitting down to see her and the rest of the crew in Melbourne, in Brighton. So a big shout out to all my friends. They’re all very special and I’m really looking forward to catching up with everybody, cal and the girls and guys down there. So I’m Brian. I think we’re heading towards. So that should be really good. Janine such done such a wonderful job in getting everybody together and all of the people that are going to be speaking, there’s going to be a talk on, um, I think by tyler he’s actually talking about real estate and dragon veins. So fascinating topics, just everybody has different views and different thoughts and they also have such an impact on us in our lives and we don’t realize it until you start to study.
So thanks so much for joining me today, Melissa. I really appreciate it. I’m so looking forward to Sunday at the wellness, holistic wellness. And Spiritual Expo that we are going to, it’s four, 4:00 PM at finishes facet to live and I am so, and it’s at a panthers North Richmond. So any questions message Melissa falling in her inbox there or I will put that up some links as well so that we’ve got those live. Um, so thank you for everybody being on the line, looking forward to catching up with everybody on Sunday talking all things you know, natural oils, women’s circles, funkshway bowel biology, everything that we can talk about that’s going to make us feel absolutely awesome. Thank you for listening and we’ll catch up with you next time.
Yeah,
I got you. Again.
Thank you so much for taking time out listening to today’s episode. If you have any questions on the process of buying, selling, leasing, or strata management, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Be sure to subscribe on itunes and I really appreciate if you could spread the word by liking and sharing this episode with your family and friends. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I look forward to catching up with you on the next episode of the Drive Home to Hawkesbury.

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On this episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury, Rachael is looking forward to speaking with 12 year old State Champion Ayla to find out what Power Tumbling and Gymnastics is all about.

Ayla always had a natural flair for gymnastics. Since starting to walk at 8 months old she was always upside down, balancing on objects or somersaulting. Quite agile and flexible she started gymnastics at the age of 4 years. Knowing the passion was there and wanting to constantly somersault and backflip she joined the well-known local Hawkesbury gym Kachan School of Tumbling and Performance who specialises in Power Tumbling and also Trampoline gymnastics. They are reported to be the leading gym in the sport and currently hold numerous World Titles from their Athletes whom they train.

Power Tumbling is a unique form of gymnastics where you perform your routine on a 25 metre rod or air floor with a series of passes consisting of flips, whips, baronies, back and front saults, double backsaults and twists.

After a year of recreational classes, they spotted her talent and commitment then invited her to join their squad team. Within 12 months of training, Ayla competed at her first State Championships with great results placing 4th in her chosen discipline of Tumbling Double Mini Trampoline and U/13 Trampoline.

2017 brought another successful year for Ayla competing at her second State Age Championships qualifying for the Australian Championships in 2 out of her 3 disciplines. Tumbling and Double Mini Trampoline. Joining the NSW Gymnastics State team she travelling to Melbourne Hiesense Arena to give her all. After a tough competition Ayla finished 11th in Australia for Tumbling and 24th Double Mini Trampoline.

Also later during 2017 the State Levels Championships happened and to Ayla’s surprise, she was able to bring home a Silver Medal for Trampoline.

2018 saw yet another amazing start to the year for Ayla’s love of Tumbling. Becoming Dual State Champion in her U13’s Tumbling and Double Mini Trampoline. They are Ayla’s first gold medals in such a high level of competition.

Ayla leaves on Monday 28th May, 2018 to join her fellow NSW State teammates to compete in her 2 Australian Championships held in Melbourne competing in 4 different events.
U13’s Tumbling and Double Mini Trampoline as State Champion, Trampoline and Synchronised Trampoline. A huge week to come for Ayla and her equally dedicated Mum Sandra, we wish them both the very best for the Australian Championships.

Rachael looks forward to seeing everyone online in support of Ayla for her big event. I Live, Love, Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode.

I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and welcome to The Drive Home to Hawkesbury, where I believe every home has a story and I love sharing those stories on real estate in real estate with you. Here we share the best ways to add value to your property, how to avoid the common mistakes people make when buying and selling property, and how to get the maximum return on your investment with a focus on supporting local business. I live love Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode with you, so let’s get started.
Good afternoon or good evening depending on what time you’re watching this episode. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and super excited to be here with state champion, not only state champion, judo state champion island. That big. That’s good. And tell me a little about gymnastics. When did that start? Were you very young?
I was three years old
years old. Okay. Hello to everybody that’s on here. It’s great to see so many people, Christine, but what says, wow, what a ride up. I’ll, I’ll look forward to seeing you in the interview and also an honorable mention for the very dedicated support person. Mom, hey, how about that? Nice one. Sandra. I hope you’re on the line. Sander. Good to see you too. And who also. We got everybody, the stack of people on here. Just in support of you for next, next week’s national. So when you started, when you were four years old. I live. That’s a pretty big thing. Tell me, what is gymnastics and heady? Get into it.
Well, I just, since I was little, I just started tumbling around the house doing handstands and rose front flips, back, flips, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah. It’s Kinda like just eating a banana sandwiches. I’m really easy stuff and I got even though it’s to. What do you call those things? When you put your hands over your head and you try and stand up and make yourself into a bit of an arch. What’s that? Cool
springs but in tumbling spot we call them flips, flips. What? We jumped. We if we did like a round of kind of thing, then we get back home to our faith, jumped back into our hands. We do that continuously. Okay.
So tell me gymnastics. Where do you train?
I can’t even talk to Christian school is tumbling and performance in Sacramento.
Okay. And what’s that like? You enjoy that? I love it there. And there’s lots of kids and adults that get involved with it too. And how many people would you try and read on any one day?
Um, probably around about eight to 10 people.
Eight to 10 people. And what does a training session like? I mean, I know I like to go for a walk by the river and that kind of stuff, but that’s a bit sedating comparison to the training. That’s somebody specialized that you do. So tell me all about that. What does get, is that an hour? Is it two hours?
It’s a four hours on a Tuesday and a Wednesday and I get four and a half hours on a Saturday.
Oh Wow. And talking
about that, I think Dima is saying hello and beck is saying hello, how are you? They’re your coaches, aren’t they?
Fantastic. And Rebecca as well. And moms online. Hi Mom. Hi Sandra. How are you doing? Your mom is a big support fruit for you as well as. And she, she’s traveling down to Melbourne, I believe, nine. Terrific. And I’ve also got another comment down. He reverts. Thank you very much for coming on. And she said a great story. It takes dedication to reach that standard. Good luck, Aila. It’s really nice to have the support from everybody, isn’t it? Because there’s so many people that are cheering you on and it must be a big thing. I mean not only the Jews state champion, but you’re also school captain at Ebeneezer School, I believe. Like I know what it’s like when you’re running a business. It’s very suddenly things on lots of staff, lots of people to work with. What is it like? It must be the same sort of pressure being a state champion champion and also as a captain.
Well I have to run a lot of assemblies every two weeks or four other captains say I’m dating. They sometimes they have to run assemblies on their own with at paypal.
Wow. Big responsibilities. And you get to go to school with a lot of kids to whatever Nisa big shout out to Mr Brian. He’s the principal. There isn’t anybody else you’d like to say hello to your little brother. Maybe Joe and little Robert. He’s my nephew. Hello Robert. How are you? So now we’ve got a bit of show and so for everybody, because I’m, I feel very, very privileged sitting next to the jail state champion and she’s bought along with her very, very special metals and she’s going to share with you could you walk us through each one of the models that you’ve received and what they mean?
Say at then you go in last year for a national clubs. Then I had this one here was at state levels last year for trampoline.
Hold that one road up to the green light there. And then look at that. Isn’t that amazing? So is there a silver medal or is that a gold medal? It’s a civil war. That’s awesome. Any middle in my. Any place. Just turning up to the competition is just a great achievement, isn’t it?
Then I had. I got this wonderful again, take double, mini tramp and the other of tumbling.
Awesome. Hi Karen and Karen’s online to say hello to you too. I’ll let everybody’s cheering you on as they are for everybody. And noses. You go girl. How about uncle? No, my uncle know. And you’ve got your grandfather on the line as well too. It’s great to have everybody there. So it’s so nice to have the support. So yeah. So, um, which is your favorite middle out of all of those ones that you’ve shown us? My tumbling. This one now that’s a gold medal. You got two gold medals too. Don’t shit. Yeah. That’s awesome. And um, what does it take to get a gold medal? Like what do you need to do that the judges are looking for when you’re doing the tumbling or the gymnastics?
Straight legs to hit the right spot on the floor. Make sure you don’t take off on the mat or the floor, kind of all that stuff.
Okay. So it’s just sort of straight legs on the floor. Straight ahead. Do you have to run really fast as you’re coming up to what you’re doing? It depends. Okay. And what does it depend on?
Um, how did you pass or retain that you’re doing or saying? If I was doing an eight school pass, you may need to run a little bit faster. I doing five scope past. Might want to rather still fast, but a little bit slower.
Okay. For the, the simple real estate agents here online like me, what’s the past and what’s. I’m a five and an eight. What’s the difference between the two? Is that an extra move that you put into the tumble?
What we do is for two passes, which basically means we have to do a five scale retain. Say it a step eight, includes a start and an ending. So Randolph and then say you’re doing whips and flips and then an end, maybe some twists. So Devil’s alright and costs. You would add a little bit more to that.
Wow. No, that’s awesome. And um, tell me when you, you’re doing the routine. So they have music that they play for you or you just got to be focused on that actual move and just get straight into it and do the past. And we’ll normally have music in the gym all the time. Wow. Christine says that you’re doing a great job explaining everything. Isn’t that good? Um, and is it one Mac and taught you put a hood on. It’s cold. Yes, exactly. We’re thinking the same thing, but I’m wearing the Australian colors because we’re all going to the nationals next, next week down to Melbourne. How’s that going to be this for the whole week in Melbourne and yes, Australian championships. And how many of you are traveling down there from your school?
Um, well there’s a couple from Asco that uh, it’s going and then I think instead of stay or the internationals are going, so they actually paid for.
Wow. And because there’s two other competitions that you may be invited to as well. Which ones in Portugal and one’s in Russia, isn’t it?
Yeah. So tell me about that. They’re mainly for the internationals. Yes. And if they qualify at nationals, I think they go to Portugal can. Yeah. No
that’s terrific. Hi Julie. Julie says for it you’re doing an awesome interview. Well done to you. I look, I completely agree. And she’s such an expert on the topic of the tumbling and I’ve, I’ve seen her in action and honestly the energy required. I mean, I’ll look like a giant and comparisons, a little Iowa. I’m not too sure how many kilos. You don’t have to answer that question, but she’s a tiny, tiny thing. How tall are you? I’m like, wow. Okay. So I’m just just under six Ford and that would sort of come up to about here on me, but the way I like I just down these paths. I mean there’s a mat and it’s. How many meters would you say would be 25? 50 million or something like that. Okay. And so she runs down this of amazing pace, those who turns and tumbles and so forth and then lands on both your feet and just big smile and thank you to the crowd. Is that the way it happens?
And safely we can present Isabelle say we did that at the start and at the end.
Oh, awesome. And Sex Sean deem. Hi Zac. How are you? Awesome work. I was still more to come and that’s so true because she’s so talented and she’s had a couple of fantastic years out there in the training and doing everything that she’s doing and I know you’ve got a really good support pro of trainers from a baker and diem and all the people down at, um. What’s the name of your school again? One more time. There we go. So they’re all great people. They work out at the winds of Baptist church down in south windsor there. It’s a great location. If anybody wants to get involved, I’m sure are baker and dean would be pleased to help them. We’ll put up a link on that for people so that they can have a look at that now with the nationals or the Australian championships coming in next week, what are some of the things that you’re thinking about going into that competition? Ireland.
It’s such a big competition. I’m a little bit nervous.
Are you? What are you nervous about?
Well, I really want to try hard to get really, really good and try mean. Yeah,
and we’re super proud of it. And you’re going to do the best you possibly can do on the day, and it doesn’t matter whether you place with you win, whatever it happens, you’re all a winner in our eyes. That’s the way I look at it. So, um, I think it’s fantastic. Now, I don’t know whether anybody’s offered you corporate sponsorship, but I think that you’ve been doing an awesome job in the tumbling and everything else and I’ve spoken to your manager and she’s okay. This, um, she’s also your chaperone and your mother, but, um, we’re going to give you some corporate sponsorship for the event. So that’s for you to take away and now you’re most welcome and we’re happy to support the local sporting organizations and also the local kids because I think it’s really important. It has done so well and she’s a real quiet achiever and she probably wouldn’t.
A lot of people may not know all of the things that she does, but the dedication and training that she has done and achieved over the last few years. And you know, starting from the age of four. And how old are you now? 11. 11. Wow. And you’re going in the underserved teens, is that right? Yeah. So it’s going to be a really big, big thing for her to be down in the competition as for everybody else going in the competition with the school. And I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. Probably a lot of pressure to, as you said, you might be a little bit nervous, but I think you’re going to do a great job as I’m sure everybody else. Thanks. So, um, all the best for down in Melbourne and I hope you come back until it’s lots of great stories and all your adventures and, and how you fear down there and um, you know, what you did and what sort of training you didn’t. Just before we finished, tell me what’s your favorite move on the actual math? What’s your favorite sort of
since yesterday. That’s probably my favorite right now.
Double Talk and what I’m with the double Tuck. Is it really important to pull the legs close to cheer? So what’s, what’s the best way to do that?
Yeah, it’s probably your legs. Say you have like a little bit of gap in your knees and make sure that your team doesn’t like hit your knees.
Okay. Yeah. And when you land what’s important when you’re landing?
I’m just try as much as he can. Try and like stick it, stick it. Yes.
That’s a technical term. And what does stick it mean for the people? Like the real estate agents that don’t know what that means. US out here
scale. And we don’t have to take a step. We just like landon stand there.
Okay. And do you have to put your arms up in the air as though, and wave to people or do any of that sort of thing or. No. Okay. Zach’s giving you a big thumbs up. He thinks that you probably. Do you know Zack a good on your coach? Zach, how are you? Stoked story. What’s that mean?
Ah, very good. Yes, there we go. We’ve got all of the, the um, the trampoline gymnastic. Speak Down Pat with the help of Ilm. And Zach, thank you for that. Well, we wish you all the very best for your training down in preliminary training prior to going down to the Australian championships, Eila and everybody else that’s going down there. We really appreciate you coming on the show. We’re looking forward to catching up with Demi and Rebecca and possibly to upon your return just to see and he all of the latest news and anybody else that wants to share the sports stories of the local community and the hope street. That’s why I’ve created this podcast just so that we can share the great stories that we all get involved with in this and many of them and um, so many unsung heroes and it’s nice to hear about.
Oh Shit to show us all your middles again. I’ll have you just done so well and we’re all super proud of you. So that’s an awesome job and we’re looking forward to hearing about it when you get back. So thanks for being on the line. Our, I’m sure everyone appreciates it and you can give them a big way and we’ll say hello and goodbye until the next time and say goodbye to people. Thanks very much for tuning in. If you’ve got any questions at all, don’t hesitate to contact me. I can be contacted@RachaelGoldsworthy.com.au. I also will put some links up from the school and also anything else that people want to know. Questions, comments, love to hear from you, and it will be fantastic. Hi Melinda. Thank you very much for your thumbs up. We really appreciate that and everybody else being on the line and the support for the local problem. Okay, take care and we’ll see you on the next one. Bye for now.
Thank you so much for taking time out of listening to today’s episode. If you have any questions on the process of buying, selling, leasing Australia management, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Be sure to subscribe on itunes and I’d really appreciate if you could spread the word by liking and sharing this episode with your family and friends. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I look forward to catching up with you on the next episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury.

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On this episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury, Rachael speaks to Drew Marshall – Defence Air Traffic Control Officer. Drew grew up in Canberra and in 198 joined the Air Force originally to train as a pilot. Unfortunately, he wasn’t successful at pilot training and swapped over to Air Traffic Control, a role he was much more suited and did well.

Drew’s first posting in 1982 was to the RAAF Base at Pearce in WA where he spent four years. During this time, Drew deployed to the Middle East – the Sinai – as a member of the Multinational Forces and Observers (MFO) for six months.

In 1986, Drew was posted to RAAF East Sale in Gippsland in Victoria, the home of the Roulettes, where he spent four years. 1990 saw Drew posted to RAAF Base Darwin for two years. In 1992, Drew began a long association with the home of the RAAF Fighter Force when he was posted to RAAF Williamtown. In his first five years at Williamtown, as well as Air Traffic Control duties, Drew performed other roles such as the Base Fire Officer – heading up the airfield fire fighting section and undertook various deployments around Australia in support of the ADF’s exercise programme. In 1997, Drew went back to RAAF East Sale for another four year posting but returned to Williamtown in 2001.

In 2001, Drew transferred from the permanent Air Force to the Air Force Reserve and began a long period of headquarters staff work directly in support of the RAAF Fighter Force at 81 Wing and Headquarters Air Combat Group. It was during this time that the RAAF deployed Fighters to the Middle East in support of Operation Falconer. Drew remained at Williamtown playing a key role as part of a skeleton home support staff during the deployment. One of Drew’s proudest moments was participating in the welcome home parade in 2006 marching the length of George St in Sydney with the other members of the deployment force before being welcomed home by the Governor General and Prime Minister at Sydney Town Hall.
Drew performed various (non ATC) roles at Williamtown over the period 2001 to 2012 including as Visits Liaison Officer meeting and greeting VIPs who were visiting Williamtown and as the Base Aviation Safety Officer, a key role managing the safe operation of the airfield.
In 2012, Drew returned to his primary role as an Air Traffic Controller but this time slightly differently. The RAAF employs ex-RAAF Air Traffic Control Officers as members of the Australian Public Service (APS) to supplement the members of the Permanent Air Force (PAF). Drew took up a position as an APS Air Traffic Control Officer at RAAF Base Richmond in 2012 and has established his home in the Hawesbury (in one of Rachael Goldsworthy Realty rental properties) where he continues to live and work.

Drew enjoys undertaking fitness activities which include participating in the Parkrun at East Richmond when shift work allows and is a keen SCUBA diver.

I Live, Love, Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode.

I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and welcome to the drive home to Hawkesbury, where I believe every home has a story and I love sharing those stories on real estate in the street with you. Can you we share the fish ways to add value to your property, how to avoid the common mistakes people make when buying and selling property, and how to get the maximum return on your investment with a focus on supporting local business. I live love and can’t wait to get into today’s episode with you. So let’s get started.
Morning, good afternoon or good evening depending on what time you’re watching this video. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy on the drive home to Hawkesbury and today I am joined by Mike Delta. This is row Romeo golf to you. Do you read me over?
How are you drew? That’s obviously not how bad I. I know I was going to say Romeo Golf to Mike Delta. Are you there? Maybe Delta. Mike. Oh, Delta. Mike. Okay. Because you reverse it. Of course. Yes, yes, yes. Thank you. Yeah, really good. Thank you. So great to have you on the show today because um, a lot of people where we live in the Hawkesbury and we’ve got the towers and we’ve got the planes overflying and um, we get to see some beautiful plains and it’s good to have somebody on like yourself that is able to share the information on what’s actually happening in the air. And I’m your illustrious career in the RAF and also as a civilian now. So tell me a little bit about that. What’s it like being an air traffic controller?
Uh, well, it, it varies a lot. Richmond is a lot quieter than the basis I’ve been at. I’ve started my life over in Perth where the air force had a, they have a flying school over there and so it’s really, really busy. Then abandoned places like Darwin and William Chan, which are equally as busy back different. And then Richmond is a lot quieter than those places. So Richmond has its moments, but it’s a quiet place, believe it or not. I don’t think a lot of a lot of residents who believed that come sort of July or January when the Hornets come down to do their stuff, but certainly it is a lot quieter than it used to than it used to be at an end compared to other devices.
No. Terrific. And um, what changes are coming up with the base? Do you know of any sort of snippets that the locals don’t know about or any insights that you can tell us about or is that
mean it’s a fairly well known fact that, um, the spot. And so the new to engine aircraft that we blocked down there at the moment, they only Dalani be huge at the end of the year. And then I really liked character emily, so we’ll go back to just having a in of Hercules, but I mean essentially richmond is still lead the transport hub of Sydney and um, I, I don’t know, it’s a, it’s something that I don’t really pay a lot of attention to is to how long the base together be there for. But you will have noticed that as you go on Hawkesbury Valley, why they’re bullying us new control tower, so that, that to me is a bit of a commitment. You probably have seen that yet, mastering mushroom thing appearing in the middle of the year and now it’s got a whole lot of blue top
holding around it. So it’s a commitment. Yeah, absolutely. And, um, I think John’s joined us on the line and Joe and a few other people. So hello to everybody that’s listening to every Bernie with this equally, um, the towers, I mean, one was not enough. We needed to. There is a bigger commitment as you say. So how many planes are coming in every day? What sort of, um, you know, tracking
did we, we can have a really busy day the other day when I was here and we had a, I know probably 36 to 48 aircraft movements. Say they had a lot to do with the parachute and that we’re doing a yet you’re going to get quite days that are quite different. I believe that yesterday was a busy day. I, uh, one of the, uh, what am I training Chinese actually got his qualification, you’ll say, so was pleasing you, sent me a text and said it was a really busy day. So, and I was in Richmond and I saw a lot of [inaudible] flying over. So was there doing some circuit training there. So was it reasonably busy day?
Well, isn’t that great if you get the certification?
Yes it is. It’s a big, it’s a big milestone in a junior controls life to get it. That’s his first control writing. So he graduated, he graduated from the school in, in Gippsland about 18 months ago. So yes, this is a big step and he’s in Korea.
And tell me, I’m drew. What is it that somebody needs to do if they want to be a traffic air traffic control of what is the training involved? Is it years, is it months, is it, you know, simulation, what do you do? What do you have to do?
Okay. Um, the system is set up so they can take a person off the street who has no affiliation background than I do about 20 weeks of officer training school, Dan at the rep basically style and that’s just general officer’s training. So all of the, all of the officers do the same training and then I go off to the school of the air traffic control, which happens to be at the same base down at a silent during that nine months there. So all in all it’s about 12 months of training and depending on where they were, the, the officer training a lot of food chain in glove with going over to the school. Some caught, a lot of times it doesn’t. So there’s a bit of hanging around. But uh, about nine months id you graduate as an air traffic controller, but that gives you the, the, the skills to go out to a base and then get trained at that phase two to drive their traffic at that bites.
And that’s what this young fellow is just done. He’s, he’s just say he completed, he completed his training about last year and a British qualification. Now after doing some training you asked me about the simulation. The school at style has, I have large, very, have a very uh, um, comprehensive, uh, air traffic control simulator which mirrors, which means a of traffic control tower. It’s, it’s, um, it’s a very big video game. Basically it’s a big room or there are in fact two of them and they have big screens around the outside and it mirrors exactly what you would see in a control tower and it’s very, very effective pitch equipment.
And when you in that simulator, does it feel real, I mean, do you, because you know, it’s a simulated because you’re sitting in there, do you think, uh, huts, just, just something that you do and we’re just gonna get in there. We’re going to play a bit of an xbox and enter that land. This plane safely.
Surprisingly no, I was out of the air traffic control for about 12 years doing other staff work and I had to go back and do a refresher in 2013 down at the school. And um, you do think, ah, it’s just, they’re just virtuals pitchers on the, on the, on the, on the screens that have not. It’s something like that at all. You really get into it. It becomes, it becomes, I think a lot, a lot of people playing vr games are the same, but this is, this is encompassing. It’s 360 degrees and you are, you’re standing in what is equivalent to a control tower and you’re busy and you’ve got a lot of our appliances, a lot of inputs. You’ve got to do a price if she can provide a lot of, a lot of feedback. So yeah, it does. It get you in and it is a workout. It’s a big workout. It’s like being in the gym.
Yeah, I’m sure. And the feedback that you would need to give to the pilots, I would think would be fairly detailed on whether on conditions, on surfaces, those sorts of things. Can you walk us through your typical landing,
the, the, the controls role is to make sure that that an aircraft landing and taking off on the wrong way, it doesn’t collide with another something, whether it be a vehicle or a person or another aircraft. So the idea is that whenever an aircraft takes off or whatever and they’ve got lanes and surprisingly people who sit on the sides of runways, you come up to the control tower, you ask them how fast is that airplane going? And I say, well, I don’t know, say well they’re applying is growing at about 120 knots when it lands and takes off. And they go. I said how does that relate to driving on the road? Because it’s about double. So an aircraft landing and takeoff was doing about 240 kilometers an hour because it’s kind of like wide open in larger airplanes. It doesn’t. It’s kind of a relative thing.
So you can imagine. So I hope you ladies is about 60 tons of airplane and it’s doing 240 kilometers an hour. So landing and taking off. You don’t want to do anything. Probably not. Yeah, that’s a good point. Valid point. So that’s the role of the air traffic controller predominantly in control to make sure that there is no obstructions on the runway for an aircraft landing and taking off. It extends beyond that. Particularly at Richmond we have a lot more lateral space at richmond because we encompass where they do the parachuting. You’ve probably seen a lot of parachuting at Reagan, be Reagan on the AFL itself in Londonderry. So we encompass more, more a lateral area than most other control towers. Um, but so we have a bit to do with things like there’s a lot of people around here and helicopters. Uh, we had the rural fire service, they fly the helicopters around here, we have a rescue helicopters flying out to go to different accidents and we’ve got to keep them away also in the air from other aircraft in the air as well as landing and taking off.
So it was a bit of activity last night with helicopters overhead in Windsor and the whole school year, I believe there’s some grass fires. We’re putting out a few other people if you’ve actually caught me on leave. So I know I wasn’t a work yesterday. I don’t know exactly what was going on. Yeah, that that happened. That’s of my, my, my first year here. My first few months here after getting my qualification back was that period in 2013 when we had all these really bad wish was around the Hawkesbury and up the Blue Mountains. And we had. We had probably two dozen aircraft stationed at Richmond. And it was manic. It was, yeah, there was helicopters, there was a little fixed wing aircraft that dumped the Flyer Todd and plus the big aircraft that were dropping the Farrakhan as well. So it was really crazy. So we do do a lot of work with the rural fire service and in regards to the planes at the airport, what is the smallest plane and the capacity of that and what would be the largest plane.
Cool. Because we’re the transport hub, Bob Sidney, we get a lot of aircraft coming and going. For example, the other day we had one of the pushy nine trainers, which is a an a pilot trainer. It came up from east side where the central flying school is in the home of the rural eds. That’s the primary pilot training aircraft and the norm. They based at peers with to find training school leaders, but at siloed like trade teach. The parts become distracted. So one of those on Friday. But we have everything so we have a. quite often we’ll have the VIP aircraft come in. Like you say, I saw one of the challenges come in. That’s a little bit. It’s about, it’s about 10 or 12,000 kilograms. Some the one that. So it will fit probably half a dozen people and fly around Australia or the cabinet general to go to sort of hide walger or some of these regional places?
Yes. Yeah, it was a little white arrow. Yeah. So we’ll have them. We have the. We had the bb Js, which is also the 34 score on an aircraft because we have our hooks which are biased to you. We have the which are based up in Amberley and I’ll come down here both to do your transport. Great. I’ll pick up stuff here and go maybe for. So recently we had them for the relief effort in the Fiji and the Solomons and places like that. But they also do other work like parachuting work. So they’ll do, they’ll pick up a load of parachutes and drop them over Richmond, all our pickup, some cargo which has been set up with parachutes and I’ll drop it over. Londonderry parachuters that Hercules. Or is it only now they come out of like coming out of the spot and sort of Hercules and the seventeens.
And so they essentially just dropped the back flying along and then everybody will just jump at a certain height. That’s right. Yeah. Generally the, um, when they’re learning to do it, they are on a, on a static line, which was a sort of thing used, probably see in the movies were in World War Two. The parishes would jump out of a, out of a, a, a decoder and, and their parachutes with parachutes with open instantly. But we’ve come a long way since then. So that’s basically the initial training and I’ll do that generally over at Creek. There’s a big field, a big field in between rick and bees creek and Windsor and uh, they do that at about 1500 feet, but they vary between that and up to up to 10,000 feet with I do free fall as well as, as the, uh, the static line, isn’t it?
Scared of heights, but I’ve actually seen them jump from 18,000 feet. But then, I mean that’s what happens down at, that’s what they do down in Picton as well. You’ve probably been down the hume highway there and they’re jumping of the jumping and anything after 20,000 feet. So generally you need supplemental oxygen from about 10,000 feet. So the guards had jumped from the higher levels, I think they use supplemental oxygen or like jump and I drop really quickly and they don’t open their parachutes to below 10,000 feet in the air traffic control. You are looking at becoming a pilot.
I grew up in Canberra and my whole sole focus in life was to become an air force pilot. I was kind of obsessed, uh, joined the air force and uh, didn’t make pilot training. Didn’t cut. They didn’t cut the mustard at the right they wanted me. So yeah, you get that. But, um, I uh, was encouraged to consider air traffic control, so I swapped over the air traffic control and haven’t looked back. That was in the early eighties and I’ve been doing this job now for 37 years. So, and it’s taken me all over Australia, uh, both in postings, uh, any exercises. And it also took me would say I went to the Middle East and 94. Um, but as I’ve worked all over Australia, it’s been fabulous because, I mean I grew up in Canberra, are really caused a little company town. Yeah, they have a lot of the people, a lot of my peers joined the company and they’ve all, they’ve all retired now because they’re in that super scheme, but I’m still going and um, obviously, you know, all of the striker and a lot of my peers, if I haven’t been to Bali, that probably haven’t been out of Canberra.
So where would your favorite place that you’ve posted? Oh, that’s like asking me who your favorite child is different. There is because my first posting out of out of basic training was period, which put us and I really love pool. I love it. It’s a really lovely paste but it has its drawbacks. It’s truly isolated. I mean it’s supposed to be the most isolated city in the world and certainly in those days, in the early eighties it was because, you know, you’re had to just about a away two weeks worth of salary to get on an airplane different now. But then I was in Darwin for a few years and it’s similar in, it’s really isolated. Um, it has a drawing, a wet season, which season you don’t want to be there. Dry season. It’s fabulous fun about then the workout, the workout. There’s really, really good. It’s the, it’s the pinnacle for air traffic control working out.
But then I spent, I spent many years at Williamtown as far as I’m concerned, you’re not going to like this because you’re from the Hawkesbury, but the hunter is God’s country and it’s like, that’s your opinion. You’re entitled to that you don’t have a favorite thing. Then you look at Victoria. I’d quite like for Victoria as well. I mean Melbourne’s a really nice place and Gibsland is a beautiful little area to the east, to the east of Melbourne and I was down there originally trading some of the, some of the guys and I was enjoying myself. You know, there’s plenty of, it’s like the Hawkesbury actually because there’s plenty of places you can go and be out in the country. Quite regional. It’s really, really pretty. Yeah, for sure. And how long have you lived in the Hawkesbury? I’ve been back in it or been here now five and a half years.
I came and um, you enjoying? Yeah, I do. Actually, it’s, it’s, it is a lovely place. I um, I am discovering more about it. Um, I, I tend to do a lot of. I’ll go into town a lot so I’m a big theater go. But then somebody said, well hang on. What about going to something like the Riverside Theater and parent mentor or going down to the Joan Sutherland in penrith and I hadn’t considered them. So now I’m considering them but uh, but yeah, hooks reads a nice place. It’s very quite, you know, people say, Oh, where do you live in Sydney, but it’s kind of western Sydney so I’m not in the rat race and I avoid the Canada, the buisiness of Sydney when I can. Sometimes I don’t have a choice because I want to go into town or apparent matter, but certainly hope springs is a lovely place to live if you’ve got to be in the Sydney area.
Yeah, for sure. And you like to keep fit as well in your spare time. You do the park runs locally. Tell me a little bit about the parks and the favorite ones that you have.
Well, I’ve only done the POC at ace Richmond. Uh, that’s the local one, which is along the long haul for evaluating the, the, the, the park that’s between the information center and the tennis courts. And I really enjoy that. It’s flat and it’s, it’s a, it’s an easy. I mean there are other ones around here, like there’s one up at Goldstone, but that has, that’s a bit challenging I believe. Um, there’s other ones. The other close ones are at penrith lakes and apparently that’s really nice because the difference between penrith lakes in east richmond is you don’t go back on yourself. It’s one continuous loop. Whereas with a, with a treatment you do, you go back when you a couple of time and it’s five ks and it’s fun. It’s just a lovely, a good distance where it’s not too short, but not too long. And I don’t know what it is about Sunday mornings, but the last couple of Saturday mornings something I brought up and it’s been low single figures I think blue and enough want to go for a run, but I get down there and it’s a lovely sunshine and it’s projected that amongst the trees there and it’s just beautiful.
It’s really lovely.
Yeah. It’s such a, isn’t it?
Yeah. And then after that we wander off down to the market for, for breakfast. So we go down and get some, either some Nice Asian or some other sort of food down there. And it’s really lovely. I wonder in the markets in enrichment for breakfast.
Yeah, there’s so many diverse cultures and in different areas to look at within the Hawkesbury. And I love the market. It’s on the weekend as you say, and you can get anything from plants to produce to, you know, things that people have made themselves, the attention trails. Um, it’s just fabulous that the selection that we have available to us. So completely.
We were close proximity to the mountains as well. I, I, um, I took a friend up for drive up to Lira for lunch on Sunday and that was really lovely. We went up there, we stopped a couple of times on the way up, including the loss of markets. There’ll be quite a bit different to the Richmond market because more of a lot more sort of hand crafts and stuff and like not, not, not as much food, but uh, but that’s really lovely to be able to be in striking distance of the Blue Mountains as well.
Yeah, you’ve really got a nice choice. You can head into the city, as you said before for a night of theater or you can head out to the mountains for a day out and there’s some great walks along there as well. And even by the river in Windsor, it’s just such a beautiful place to be. So, um, lots of. Yeah. So tell me, um, other things to distress and air traffic controller, would that be diving? Is that on your list? I believe.
Oh, you’ve been doing your research, Rachel? I’m on holidays. This is six or eight months that I did. I mentioned that I was on holidays. Tell us about that. I sat in my holiday yesterday and I’ve given myself a few days before jumping on an airplane on Friday and going to the Maldives for eight days. I’ll be diving scuba diving off a boat for eight days in the Maldives skin. Scuba diving is a, is a, is something I started doing when I was a teenager in Canberra before I joined the air force and it’s just something I liked doing it. Talking about de-stressing. Yeah, it’s lovely because under the water, swimming around with beautiful colored fish and Carl and depending on where you are, I’ve been to Fiji and to Micronesia, but also been down the south coast of New South Wales and as Billy Connolly says, there’s no such thing as cold weather. It’s inappropriate clothing. So the different places in different places you go, you just put the different, different thicknesses of wetsuit on and enjoying the scenery.
I’ll have a thin wetsuit inn in the Maldives because the temperature is about 27 degrees. But uh, I’ve dived off Nelson buying dog down at the south coast where the water’s been about 14 degrees, so I had my six and a half mil semi dry on there. That was dive in the meltdowns. Most definitely, yes. And living on a budget so we don’t have to go back to the resort all the time. So we’ll get up in the morning. The first thing we’ll do is jump in our wetsuits to go for a dive and come back for breakfast.
That sounds like a really hard life theater, a little bit jealous
if you’ve got a distress, you’ve got to, you’ve got to be, you know, some people. It’s your holidays. We’ve got a very, I mean some people like walking around matching pitch you and some people like walking around Eastern Europe and, and, and some people like jumping on a, on a, on a cruise boat. I’ve done that too. I’ve been on a, on a cruiser out of Sydney for 12 days and that was quite relaxing. But um, but active tourism is good too, especially when you, when you’re fit and healthy.
Definitely. Yeah. And um, you’ve been with us at Rachael Goldsworthy realty for a number of years now, and tell me a little bit about that as a tenant. What’s your thoughts in regards to tenants and tenants in the Hawkesbury and, and that sort of thing?
Interesting, interesting question cause you’re my third property manager. Um, and I’m actually pleasantly surprised of the white people around who do business. Um, I, I haven’t been a longtime landlord owning investment properties myself and it’s kind of one of the tenants using the term in a different way. One of the tenants in, in real estate investment is probably manages a goal and I’m, I’m really pleasantly surprised at the way people do business here because I do a, well there’s certainly the property managers are active. I mean a previous, uh, property managers were inspecting every six months. You do a, you do quarterly, which is a bit different and you’re also bringing the, the owners round. That’s something I never did as a, as a landlord. I never went around. I just left it to my, to my property managers. But after seeing you do that, I now do that myself. I, uh, I, you know, I go with my property manager, inspect my property. So that’s a, that’s a, I think that’s a good way because you get to see the face of the faceless landlord, which is, which is good too. I like it.
Yeah. I think it ends all about transparency, isn’t it? Oh, absolutely. Yes. And I think too, it’s important to have everybody on the same page, making sure that, you know, not only as the landlord happy with the property, but also the tenant is happy with the property because it lives there. They treat it like their home. The home that you have is just immaculate. There’s no blade of grass that is out of price. There’s no, you know, the floors you could eat off. Everything is so clean and immaculate and we’re very lucky to have tenants like drew that do such a great job. So we really appreciate your tenancy.
Thank you. Yeah, no, I just, I, I met, I met, I met the new, the new, um, the new resident across the road the other day and we’re discussing this. She was ordering her loan and I said, I don’t want to be that tenant that, that rental across the road that has as weeds and grass and everything everywhere. It looks like a rental, you know what I mean? You got me on the straight and straight with all of owner occupiers and they very, very house proud. I don’t know, I don’t really want to be that guy. So
yeah. Now I think we’re very lucky. We’ve got a lot of great dentists like yourself that do look after the properties and we have no problems that inspections when we do the quarterly inspections and I’m very pleased to have you on the team, so thank you. Yeah,
there anything? I don’t have horses. I don’t have a dog, so I don’t feature in a Tuesday dog.
The top dog and which we have cats. Yeah. Well we could probably take a photograph of a stuffed dog. Wait, we’re not all inclusive. We’re pet friendly, all inclusive. Whether they’re soft or not, so um, you know, it’s, it’s all good. Happy to play that. Every Tuesday we put a what drew’s referring to, we’ve put a top dog up, a photograph in the facebook page and it’s just a different pits that I get to meet on the inspections that we do and we have anything from birds to rabbits, Guinea pigs to dogs and cats and pigs and sheep and cows and birds. Yeah. Everything. So definitely lots of fun and lots of smiles as a result of meeting all their animals. Yeah.
Interesting. You’ve got, you’ve got, you’ve got David sitting on your shoulder there.
Hello? David? Yes. No, David’s. I’m lucky enough to have him. I really like your mum and dad actually bought him for me when I had another property and I’ve just bought in with me. I couldn’t bear to leave him at the property that it was bought for so east. It’s proudly in the garden of the office and um, keeps me safe. So that’s a good thing. So tell me, is there anything, like if somebody wanted to become an air traffic controller, let’s get back to your original vocation, what would they have to do? How would they, who would they get in contact with? What do they need to do?
The, the, the primary guy to recruiting basically. Uh, I’m not quite sure where they’re recruiting centers are around round Sydney. Clearly there’d be one in town somewhere and I think there’s some inherent matter and parents as well, but a lot of it’s online as well. So it’s just a basic. It’s basically a case of the recruiting will direct you towards, um, uh, to do stuff that tests your capability to do the job because not everybody can do the job. Uh, so that will be, do, doing some sort of testing to, for capability and if you pass those tests then they will, they’ll start the ball rolling and you go through other things such as psychology testing. I’m board testing for officer qualities, that kind of stuff. So, um, it, it’s a bit, I think it takes a while. I haven’t been through that for a while, but talking to my younger peers and seeing what they’ve been through.
Uh, it, it, uh, it, there is a process. Yeah, there’s a lot, a lot of testing for, for, to see whether you’re suitable. And then of course there are two ways you can come in. You can either come in as a direct entrance as I need a or a this quite a few that I work with at the moment who are, um, ad for graduates. So if, uh, if there’s a student, if you know somebody has got a student that they’re looking at sort of year 11 and 12 and they are considering a degree and I want to do something in aviation, I’m, I’m either against a great deal. Yeah, you gotta you gotTa high degrees, not afraid degree because you actually get paid to do it and you don’t come out with a hex debt and you got a job to do at the end of it. So because she knows how you come out with a degree and it can be anything. Because I work with a girl who’s got a chemistry and geography degree and I work with guys that have aviation degrees and that kind of stuff. So they originally diverse dude straight from aviation science degrees and a at the end of it they do their initial employment training the nine months down at styled, doing their air traffic control training.
And tell me what’s the mix of miles versus females. I mean you obviously will work cohesively together, but is there a higher percentage of miles I would expect in that sort of a role
or is that control it force has been one of those domains. Certainly since I’ve been in it that has a high proportion of women mainly. Yes. Yeah, I’ve worked in. It was, in fact it was funny you funny because I was talking to mentioned to a friend the other day how when I’ve. Even though when I first started in, in, in, in uh, in the role 30 odd years ago, I worked in, in areas where they had built the buildings in the, in the, in the seventies when there wasn’t this large female presence. And it goes, the trouble with those is that there was a large male toilet and a locker room and showers and everything, and there was one female toilet toilet. Of course that’s all changed now, but certainly I think the percentage is about 35 to 40 percent women in air traffic control. But I’ve certainly worked in sections where it’s been hard in that certainly when I first got to Williamtown in the, uh, in the early nineties. So it’s 50 slash 50.
Wow. And is there a particular skillset that you would need to have, whether it’s detail or whether it’s, you know, something else that you think is really important. If somebody was thinking about becoming an air traffic controller, I’m wanting to study what key elements would they need to have to be a great air traffic controller?
The biggest thing is being able to establish and develop a mental picture, spatial awareness of mental picture of what’s going on. If you, if you can think in three dimensions, then you won’t do the job. So it’s a case of taking all the different inputs, whether it be from a radar screen or from looking at a window or from the or from the radio calls that you get, developing some sort of picture in your mind as to where everybody is and then making sure that you either don’t let them get near each other or you tell them where each other is so they can look out for themselves, depending on what sort of flight rules, fine by. So, um, and it’s also made your calculation. For example, if you’re trying to sequence aircraft and they want a crop, you’re doing three or four miles a minute.
We work in malls, in, in ideation, nautical miles, and one’s doing to Mars and make united the guy doing three or four miles minutes going to be just doing the fastest. But if he’s got twice the distance, you’re going to be in the same place at the same time. So while they might, one might be 20 miles north, the other one might be 10 miles south. In three or four minutes, you’re going to be in the same place. So you’ve got to develop the ability to see that that’s going to happen. So you need to put in place some sort of separation standard.
Yeah. That’s really fascinating because it’s so true to be able to think on your feet and to be able to assess what’s going to happen and how things are going to pan because you know, I’ve seen a lot of close calls on youtube of different planes going from one place to another and there must be a great deal of pressure on you as an air traffic controller to get it right.
Yeah. Well the thing about where I would like to, to uh, I like to try to relate paypal’s youtube, it is, they trying to control is a lot like driving your car, except there’s a third dimension. So it’s kind of like if you’ve ever watched the jetsons, how now the jetsons get around in, in flying vehicles. It’s kind of like that because you’re not driving on the road anymore. Were you actually driving in three dimensions? The road? Certainly do have, you know, there is this, the road trip road. So you generally can’t deviate off the road to go where you want so that you don’t have to add that randomness you do in the air. Um, but, uh, but there are rules. Sign was on the road, you know, you give it to the right, you stop at Red Lights and that kind of stuff. Same thing happens in the aviation world.
The big difference of course is that in a place like, like an airfield like Richmond, we have HIV. Can Charles that had that, that extra safety dimension because generally the pilots are flying, has said that they find a lot faster but don’t have the kind of visibility out of Saudia cargo aircraft, cockpit that I dropped her brother does. So there’s, that’s why we have the attractive jobs. Having said that though, there are a lot of places around Australia and the world where, um, there isn’t a air traffic control for Jabil. Yeah, you’ll go to if you fly, if you, for example, to um, to the west of Bathurst for example, is no hop trial at bathurst orange. And so aircraft going do, they will fly into the air and do the same sort of procedures that you do on the road and you sought each other out, but by looking out for each other and talking to each other on the radio,
that’s really interesting that, um, there is no traffic control down at those sort of, um, country locations, but you can understand it because they wouldn’t be as much. Um, you know, as many planes coming in and touching base. So I suppose, you know, it’s a cost thing as well. It would be very expensive.
Yeah. Yeah. It’s a cost benefit thing, you know, it’s, it depends on some places have, it depends on how long you had the air traffic control going forward as well during the day. Some places, for example, coffs harbor has the attempt to try to thinking about, I don’t know, announced a date and it just covers the regular public transport aircraft coming in and out. Whereas you get more any Melbourne, Brisbane, which are 24 hours a day.
Yeah, right. Tell me the photograph that you sent through for the. The actual broadcast is in front of a search and rescue helicopter, I believe. Would that be right? And if you could tell us a little bit about that and during uniform at that time.
Sure. Um, I, um, I’m still in uniform as a reservist. I, I’m a reserve air force person as well, so I do occasionally do reserve work. That photograph was taken at Williamtown and williamtown like all of the basis that have a aircraft that have ejection capability have I a contracted search and rescue capabilities. Well, so the aircraft you saw there is a 60 year, 76 helicopter that is completely filled out for, uh, for search and rescue. So it’s got all, a lot of the infrared and it’s got a big, a big bright light on the front of it. It’s got all different kinds of radios but also has a billion back for taking leaders, has a winter and that kind of stuff. So they have them located in a place like Emily William Chan style piece and they had an agenda as well. And I go to where the, if there’s an exercise on where they’ve got horns or pc nines or hawks who are objection, capable aircraft, they had the search and rescue helicopters as well. So part of my role when I was at Williamtown, uh, I was a part of my role, whether it was to be involved with the search and rescue helicopter managing, helping them manage that contract.
And now you’re out of uniform in the role that you play. You’re the, um, what the air force did is that they decided they needed a little bit of, um, of a continuity and experience and they weren’t getting that because the, the HIV controllers have a career stream in uniform, I tell stream. So they either want to go backwards or they want to go off and join the air services and getting paid a lot more money and not get posted. And so places like Richmond were uniform. Air traffic controllers will come in, they’ll do work for the posting. Life is about four or five years. And then they’ll get posted somewhere else or they’ll get promoted and go and do some sort of staff job. So they needed a little bit more continuity in corporate knowledge in certain places like Richmond because they weren’t getting it.
So I wanted, I decided to do was employ some of the ex uniform people to come back and we were a public servants. We are employed by the department of Ed says public servants, but we’re ex military air traffic controllers and we do exactly the same job as the, we do exactly the same jumpsuit, uniform equivalence except most of the 30 something years of experience. And uh, we are supervisors and training officers as well. So a lot of the lot of people we get, a lot of the junior had controls. We get to Richmond for example, generally don’t make training option supervisor level before they posted somewhere else. Uh, and that’s where we’re at at Richmond. We have five, a public servant staff, air traffic control staff that provide that continuity and corporate knowledge.
And I think he’s said, you know, it’s really important to have that continuity because in any business, you know, in real estate, I mean, I was talking to Joanne who is the agency manager for my business and we, we worked out the other day. We’d been working together for nearly 25 years and um, it’s a long time and there’s a lot of things that you share in that time and you could almost finish one another’s sentences. Joanne, for those of you that don’t know, she’s actually my sister in law. So, um, you know, she looks after my brother very well and they’ve got a beautiful family that live in Portland, but she works beside me in what she does. And um, you know, it’s a very cohesive situation within work because I think you get to know what’s, what the next step is, what their thoughts are. But also for the new people coming on, like you said, there’s that continuity. They’re able to try and they’re able to assist and they know what your thoughts are in regards to certain, you know, things that you or processes that you do within the office. So it’s great to have that continuity for the RAF base and um, to have the knowledge from yourself to be passed through the ranks as it was
and you tend to, you tend to be the, the, the, not so much the limiting factor, but sort of the new people are very keen and have their good ideas and stuff, but you don’t want to reinvent wheels as well. That’s people kind of let’s do it this way. You Go, well, we tried that six years ago and this is what happened. So yes, try that if you like, but be aware that there are limitations in what you’re trying to do. Yeah. You know what I mean? The stick in the mud here, what you want to have innovation, but you also want to be a, a temporary factor.
Yeah. I really liked that, that concept to be able to, to have that there and try new things, but also look at what’s already the tried and true that’s already working and I’m trying not to reinvent the wheel too often, but just sort of tech when the wind is a little bit lower and make sure you’re hitting in the right path.
Yeah. Well the other thing too course with us is because we had the experience, um, if things get a little bit frantic as I occasionally do, we because a lot of, we turned it over before we, we don’t, we tend not to get us. Well, that’s our job, not to get fired. He can and we are that temporary influence, particularly the younger people with when I do get a little bit overwhelmed,
yes, you’d hold it together and make sure that they were steady oncourse. And um, I think too, having the backing of somebody that knows what they’re talking about and has the experience to be able to make that judgment call. Obviously they’re in there, the Hellman and trying to do the right thing, but if they’ve got that confidence, if somebody like yourself behind them going, yep, that’s the right, the right decision to make there or know, yes, bring them in at this angle or you know, that’s the, the weather conditions on the day and you can have learned in this particular way. I think that’s great.
That’s an example. The other day. We’re, the last sort of week has been brilliant. Autumn weather where there’s hardly been a breath of wind and the selection of the runway is the wind dependent. You want the wind blowing into the nose of the airplane. And uh, my junior colleague was watching it very because the wind here vary so much between a sandwich. The runway at Richmond is a sweat, so goes eastover, windsor or West over Richmond. And we were just watching the wind indicator vary between east and west. Old Guy. And he was trying to chase the wind as to the selection of the runway. And I just smiled and said, okay, I’ll let you do that. And then after, after you changed around my, about three, four times, I said just leave it there, just leave it and, and when the aircraft comes in or goes out, we’ll decide at that particular time and looked at me and says, that’s a good idea. Why don’t we do that?
That’s great. Well listen, we’ll leave on my favorite airplane when it goes overhead. The 17 tell me. It just has such a great presence. You see it in the sky coming from a distance, it’s almost hanging there and suspended. But it’s such a big plane. I mean, how big is it? What’s the wingspan and what’s the weight of it? And what’s the furthest. I know we touched on it slightly before, but it seems to be. I don’t know what it is, but I just love that flying.
Its wingspan from tip to tip is about 53 meters. And why I say 53 is because if it’s more than 54, we have to treat it differently at Richmond because of the limitations. So it’s just under 54 meters from wingtip to wingtip. So we’re talking half a half a rugby league football field length from wingtip to wingtip. Um, it’s about 200 times. So it’s a very big airplane, but, um, because it’s got such powerful engines, uh, it, the runway, William, sorry, Richmond is only about 2000 meters long, 2,100 meters long, so it’s just over two kilometers you’re applying can quite comfortably land on, on that runway. Um, and pull up within about a third of that, the to do the runway lengths, 2,100 meters. So it’s just out of two kilometers. So let’s say 17 landing depending on its white, will pull up in about sort of a thousand meters.
I’ve actually seen the Americans because the Americans come in here once a week as well, uh, from Guam and the character alice springs, they, um, the Chinese designers, I, as I said to you earlier, applying to flying John Light airfields and, and on short runways. And sometimes I like to practice it and I’ve actually seen an American 17 coming in and coming in over the top of Richmond land right at the front of the runway. And side of the runway and he’s pulled it up in about what are they in about. I hired a maintenance, so he’s taken this chartered airplane and doing about 240 ks an hour and he’s pulled it up in about 800. Made it so you know, in, in, in just over a couple of football, football field linked. So it’s pretty amazing airplane because it’s got the power to get it off the ground, but it’s also got the power when it lands to put it into full thrust and,
and uh, and pull it up really quickly and I presume it would take the pilot, you know, the skill pilots and be able to do that as well. Um, to pull it out. So yeah. No, that’s terrific. Well, it’s been. The whole interview has been fascinating for me. I hope everybody else’s enjoyed listening to drew talk about his career and the air force and what I’m, the ref base does and what it is like being an air traffic controller. I really appreciate your time coming on the show today, drew, and I’m looking forward to catching up with you at the next routine inspection. That way. Well, you might an impact because that’s next week and I’ll be in Maldives. Ah, yes. Okay. Just rather than that a little bit for everybody online, are we is going to the all. Yeah. You’ll have to let yourself eating. No, no troubles at all. We’ll have a fabulous time in the old days. Thank you for everybody being online and we’ll catch up with everybody on the next episode. Bye for now. Bye.
Thank you so much for taking time out listening to today’s episode. If you have any questions on the process of buying, selling, leasing, or strata management, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Be sure to subscribe on itunes and I’d really appreciate it if you could spread the word by liking and sharing this episode with your family and friends. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I look forward to catching up with you on the next episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury.

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On this episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury Rachael catches up with Naturopath, Kathryn Hams on the questions raised this week from last week’s podcast.

Lots to cover including Ghost Sightings at Australiana Pioneer Village, Hashimotos, Wholistic Wellness & Spiritual Expo in the Hawkesbury on Sunday 11am – 4pm, The Road to Fiji 2018 for Rouse Hill Rhinos U16 Team and more…

Something for everyone in this Community Noticeboard. I Live, Love, Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode.

I’m Rachael Goldsworthy, and welcome to The Drive Home to Hawkesbury, where I believe every home has a story, and I love sharing those stories on real estate in the Hawkesbury with you. Here we share the best ways to add value to your property, how to avoid the common mistakes people make when buying and selling property, and how to get the maximum return on your investment, with a focus on supporting local business. I live, love Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode with you, so let’s get started.
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening depending on what time you’re watching this video. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I’m on the drive home joined by Katherine Hans, how are you today?
I’m good, I’m in a nice warm situation so I’m quite happy. It’s a lovely sunny day out there though isn’t it, but it’s like the winter chills definitely kicked in now.
Snow is on its way I would say, don’t you?
Definitely, you find that you get cold, and then you get that bitter.
Yes.
That bitter that you can feel, I feel it like it comes off the mountain and it’s like okay, it’s snowing up there somewhere, and you can bet your bottom dollar it is.
I know, and when you look over to the mountains and you can see those, the shaping of the Cumulus clouds that have got that particular snow look in them, you know it’s on its way. So, I definitely agree we’ve had a different change over that last couple weeks. It was sorta like when is summer going to end in the first instance, and then are we gonna get any cold weather for winter or coming into winter, and I think it’s finally arriving.
Yeah, I think it is. I’m wondering, do you think maybe the seasons are changing around?
Potentially, they could be, I mean we should get somebody on about the climates and how the weather, and how it’s changing. Actually, next week I’m going to be having a discussion with Drew Marshall whose one of the tower operators of the RAF base. So, he might be able to give us some indications in regard to the weather.
I’m sure he’ll have a lot to give us indication on about things like that.
Yes, I think so, and I think next weekend we’ve got the Holistic, Wellness and Spiritual Expo coming up, that’s on the Sunday at Panthers, North Richmond, so that should be a good day out.
So, are they doing that out in the car park at Panthers there, is that their idea or?
I think they’re actually going to do it within the complex, so if you enter into the complex, it’ll be inside and there will be stalls set up, local business. I will be there also, talking all things home and Feng Shui and I’m going to be joined by Michelle Segar, who is a co-creator of a lot of things Feng Shui, with what we’ve been doing. She’s a balmologist and working on healthy homes, and how to create a positive environment so you’ve got mould, or EMF, or things in the house that aren’t going to be that great for you, she specialises in that, and we can help you with the process with your home and make sure that it just feels better when you’re living in it; because you spend a lot of time at home and at work and you want to make sure that those environments are optimum.
We do, and we talk so much about the home and how much it means to us because it’s one of the most, or the most, expensive purchase we ever make isn’t it really?
Oh, absolutely you’re so right. Talking about expensive purchases, I know that we all sort of look at houses and cars and those sorts of things as expensive purchases, but the vehicles that we probably don’t put as much time and money into is ourselves. You had a great discussion the other week with a naturopathic, maybe if you share a few snippets from that, I thought it was a fascinating video that you both did on Hashimoto’s and how to overcome that.
So Sandra Stewart is a naturopath, she works in the area, we studied together at a naturopathic degree, and it so happened that she had Hashimoto’s and found out while she was doing her degree, and I found out in the later parts. So, she’s helped me a lot but the thing was, I think there’s so much hype about thyroid conditions that people will jump on the bandwagon of saying they have a thyroid condition where it could be something else. It’s extremely important not to misdiagnose, and not to allow a lot of self diagnosing. So, Sandra and I really wanted to get on and be, as I do all my talks, de-constructed and just talk about what it was like from our own personal point of views to have Hashimoto’s; and she made a lot of relevant sort of remarks about the situation. But what I really like, Rachael, is that we had people from Denmark, from the U.S., and the U.K. and I had a lot of follow up afterwards from that, and also the groups on Facebook followed up with this too; because we’re actually giving really good, sound advice, and yet we weren’t selling ourselves as Natural Paths, we’re basically selling ourselves with knowledge. So, people were safe.
Yeah, absolutely, I think that, that’s a great thing that you do because there should be more of it, and I think that’s essentially why we set up this. I mean, you’re a Natural Path, a hypnotherapist, I’m a real estate agent we’re not trained in any of this, but we just wanted to share different ideas, different topics, community things, and anybody that has ideas, or thoughts, or comments, we’d love your feedback. We’d love your questions, we don’t have no hold back with us is there Kath.
There’s not, and I mean the thing is from that one I did the other night with Sandra, she really enjoyed doing it, and we’re going to follow up by deconstructing the heart of thyroid condition even more, and we’ll do it monthly that’s a monthly thing we’re going to do. Myself, I’m going to do the pro bono’s on Thursdays and just open it up that if people want some free naturopathium advice, they can get it, even with hypnotherapy, and mind issues, anything. So, maybe later you could put up my website or something, so people can look into that. It’s about the people of the community of the Hawkesbury, and that’s exactly what you and I wanted to do. We wanted to pick up subjects, just not pertaining to our own fields, but other fields, and I think it’s good and sometimes you upset people, and sometimes you don’t, but that’s personalities, if we didn’t have that what would we have to talk about.
Exactly, and there’s always two sides to every story and it’s good to hear all the stories, it’s important that they’re read and it’s important that the community comes together and we can do that. Talking about community, I’ve got some exciting news, big shout out to Kylie McNamara, hello Kylee I haven’t spoken to you for a little while but I believe little Brody is heading over to Fiji. The under sixteens, it’s organising a fundraiser for the road to Fiji, for their Rouse Hill Rhinos, as it was. So, that sounds like a bit of fun, I might try to get Kylee to get Brody online in the next few weeks and see if we can help. They’re heading out in September, so we’ve got plenty of time, but if anybody wanted to support the local club they would be more than happy to receive your feedback, and your donations. Whether it’s for the jerseys, for them being on field.
Hi Diane, how you going, you really like this programme. Thank you so much Diane, we really appreciate your feedback. In regard to the team sports, anybody that’s got a sporting organisation or somebody that wants to get the word out there about some event that’s coming up, that’s what Katherine and myself are all about. We just want to share the word and we want to share the spirit of the local communities.
The thing is too, even if people have got things out there that they’re trying to raise funds for and they might be stuck for ideas, shoot it along to Rachael and I, because the things, we’ve done a lot of fundraising, being involved with a lot, so it’s always good to have that other person because when you’re involved in thinking on something so much, you tend to not look around, and you need that third person that’s not involved to give you that chip. I know that we’d both be very happy to help out with whatever we can.
No I completely agree with that, we’re here for you. Dane, he always tunes into our programmes, thank you very much. I haven’t spoken to Dane for a little while, but if anybody needs transport to and from the airport, he’s the best transport guy that there is locally and abroad; so, if anybody needs somebody like that to take them to the airport let me know and I’ll put you in touch with Dane.
So, I heard that you were saying something about the ghost tours that they do, or the sleigh was it that you did?
Yes, yes and it was so spooky.
Spooky dooky eh?
Spooky dooky indeed, it was absolutely fabulous, I went to the Australiana Pioneer Village, Peter runs the spooky dooky tours and the after hours spooky dooky tours. There’s some local spooky dooky tours as well, they do the ghost tours just before and you get all the history which is great; which I can put the website up for those ghost tours. But there’s also the one after, and they essentially call themselves the ghost hunters because there not actually having a look at the history so much, they do have a look at the different midral colleges and the different cottages throughout and what year that they’re all build and what application they had in the community. But Australiana Pioneer Village, for those that don’t know, it’s a little village with lots of history, and lots of new history as well; and on weekends you can go there and join in the fun and just walk down memory lane and see old buildings, and relics, and different places. So, there’s a lot of history there and essentially what they’re saying is that there’s a lot of spiritual activity too.
Yeah, it was fascinating and we went to three different houses within that, I won’t give too much away, but we made contact with a few different people, and what they are essentially doing is you go into a room and they would have you blindfolded and they would put white noise on your ears and then they would film this. So, they’re looking for movement, they’ve got special cameras that can video tape this, and they tried a particular technique to invoke the spirits I suppose. It was fascinating to watch and see and listen, and then there was another one that had an app, that I’ve since downloaded. It’s called echo vox, for anyone that wants to do that, and you can actually ask it questions and the answers can sometimes come through. So, what we were doing is asking those questions on the night, and it was coming though, like a radio. You know how in the olden, sixties or what have you, and they had those old radios, and tuning in it was almost like the aliens were coming in on this radio, so that was fascinating.
Then we went for a walk around, and I also learned something else new, on the night, it’s called, I don’t know whether you’ve heard of it or anybody else has heard of it, but it’s called table tipping; and it’s essentially, you know your grandmother used to have an old table top and you used to put your coffee on there and it was only probably thirty centimetres, fifty centimetres tall, and you’d put your hands on the top of this table. Each one, you’d all sit around in a circle, say it might be five, six of us, and we all sit around in a circle, and the more energy in the hands on the table would be better; and just sitting there thinking nothing is going to happen, what could happen. But then this table, once we start asking some questions, this table starts to move, like literally the whole table tipped up and went to this side, so yes, no questions, and who do they want to contact, what was the name of the person, and we’re spelling out the name. Dylan came through, so he was in one of the back areas of the Australiana Pioneer Village and it was fascinating, a really good time.
If anybody ever wanted to go there, they do have them regularly, so I will put the website up for people, and you can go on the ghost tours. It started at 11 p.m. and went till 6 a.m. the next morning, and then I’m back straight out for work after that. It was terrific, and Lynn came along, she’s the local valuer. Hi Lynn, how are you, and Peter and Robin and Alex, and a few other people that we know, which is great. So, it’s just a terrific, fun night out, and just the equipment was fascinating that they had. Have you had experience with ghost tours or going anywhere on ghost tours.
No I’m too much of a scardey cat, I wouldn’t do that, no. I personally believe there’s something there, and I find it very fascinating. I was a very big disbeliever many, many moons ago, and then things like tarot cards and things like that, and people that know you. I think I told you just before my birthday this year I went and had a reading, which I do every birthday. It mentioned something about one of my aunts that was passing, and my aunt did two weeks later, so I don’t disbelieve, but going to where you did, on a winters night, I high five you because I like my warm bed and my hot water bottle, and that’s my options I’d have to say on a windy night.
I was definitely the michelin women that night, I was rugged up, upon rugged up, upon rugged up. I think I had four jackets on me, I had layers underneath that, I had a singlet on, it was all for the comfort because walking around in minus degree temperatures, it was minus I’m being dramatic it was probably two or three degrees; but it was very cold. One of the first exercises that we did was go down to one of the shearing shed, I think it was, and the shearing shed it’ll be really good because there’re heaters in there and you’ll be so warm, and I’m thinking, oh this is cool going on this tour, it’s freezing cold, walking down this dirt track. Then you get down to the shearing shed, you walk in and there’s this massive warehouse style, big open shearing shed and you know how big shearing shed are, and you know what the heater was… it was a bar heater on the wall. It was about that big and I’m thinking they oversold that, they talk about real estate agents, well let me tell you.
That could have been your karma too you know?
It could have been.
See, isn’t that amazing our expectations, because we’re cold and we’re thinking oh wow there’s gonna be all this, well they delivered, there was a heater.
Exactly, they did and it was a great heater and I was very thankful for it on the night, because it was freezing. You keep talking, I’m gonna try to find a video here and I’ll see if I can play that online for everybody whilst you’re doing what, just having a bit of a chat, and I’ll try to find one of these.
Well, what I’m gonna talk about is that yesterday, well actually yesterday evening, I was asked to go and do a speakers gig for Beyond Blue down in Balmain, and it was for one of the church groups down there. So, I went down to Balmain to do that speakers group, and it was only say maybe fifteen people that came out, but the likelihood of any of them listening today would be zero. But, anyway, they did come out, and they were a mature group of women and guys that came out, and they ask quite a lot of questions, which I love interactiveness when we get that. But, what I wanna do, Rachael, is last week we were talking about mental health, and I just wanna do the statistics, it’ll take me one second I’m not gonna go on about this. The statistics being that one in six women and one in eight men will experience depression, and that one in three women and one in five men will have anxiety. So, it’s very real, and for the people that contacted me after this past week and got in touch with me. Again, I welcome anyone that wants to contact me and find out what they can do, phone numbers and even if I can’t help them, to put it further so they can get help.
Look, I think that’s a really valid point, and listening to those statistics, it’s more prevalent than we think, and that segway’s to what the book of the week that I’ve been looking at. It’s a book that I looked at some probably three or four years ago “Falling Forward” by John Maxwell, and it’s all about that. It’s all about falling, it’s all about two steps forward, one step back, and I think that a lot of us, we don’t realise that everybody’s trying to do the same sorts of things, trying to make the best at what they have; and sometimes it is hard, like you said, sometimes you do need to put your hand out and say okay I need some help with whether it’s a business, or I need some help with things around the house, or I need some help with anything in life because I think a lot of us, we’re all too proud to put a hand up and say can you help me this weekend.
I think that’s true, and I think it’s sometimes not even help, they just want someone to listen. I know from my experience at Live Plan that we had people where you just listened. I will not go on about this, but the thing is that if someones not doing what they used to do, or they’re not enjoying themselves, or anythings changed for more than a week or so, make time, make a space, don’t have it in a crowded place, and make it so that person knows you’re actually with them and you’re listening to them. That’s the biggest help you can give. So, anyway, how’d you go with the video, did you get it going or what?
Yes, I think I did, it’s sort of more sound, I don’t know if you can hear this or not. Wrong video. It’s always it’s live.
This is back to me, and I now jump in again.
Can you hear that?
It’s very rough, very rough.
Anyone out there? Are you hiding in a rock? Robert, any messages for Robin?
Could you hear what that was?
What was it?
That’s essentially what it is, you put it out there through this echo box, and they have spirit boxes, there different transmitters, so essentially they put them out there, connect them, and then the voice comes through in different mediums. So, you’ll ask it a question, is there anybody in the house with us now? And you wait about ten seconds, twenty seconds, and sometimes they’ll say yes or sometimes it’ll say no, and so then you ask it another question. Did you die in this house, we’re talking about spirits obviously. So, we’re trying to find out the history of property, and it was fascinating actually. Some of them, somebody asked about a pit, and then the word pit came through in this, and you’re thinking I’m just wanting to hear this and I think this is actually coming though. But, it really was really, really fascinating.
Good.
The other thing that I wanted to share with people today too is every week on Monday we do motivational Monday online for Rachael Goldsworthy Realty. We put a post there, so if anybody wants to like or share we’re happy to share the love and the quote for this week is “Believe and act as if it were impossible to fail.” How many of us would achieve so much more if that’s what we had, if we had that thought that we’re so not gonna fail we just attempt everything. We’d say yes to everything wouldn’t we.
Well, I think that’s what you’re doing when you create your pathway and I think that you do it on a conscious and subconscious and you don’t realise. That’s what I’ve done before with people in training, in creating their pathways and their dreams are possible. It’s a great big thing to be said for fake it till you make it because that’s actually it, it’s actually true. If you’re living the creation of what you want, well then you believe it, then it’s gonna happen. If you don’t gotta believe it or live it, how would you expect anyone else to believe in you and that what it comes to.
That’s exactly right, I completely agree with that. I remember when I first started in real estate it was two puppy dogs and a cat and my place and I thought how am I gonna make all this happen. I really have no idea, and then I sat down, wrote it all down, where the vision was, where I wanted the business to go, what I perceived was going to happen and every day, it took years to get there, but you sort of get to that point where things start happening and then they start falling in to place and you go oh my gosh, I wrote that down four years ago. You go back through different things and it’s fascinating.
I think it comes back to what you were talking about in one of our earlier videos about the un=limitless thinking and I know that some days aren’t that great for all of us, and sometimes we’ve got to pick up sticks and move on and do what we’ve gotta do and be the best people we can be on that day with the energy that we have. But, essentially, if you keep focus and stay focused on that point that you wanna be, or where you wanna be, or what you wanna do, or how you wanna help out with the family, or help out with other people in your life. Stay true to that, eventually you get there. In some way, shape, or form.
You do, the thing is, and I take note of people saying oh it’s easy for you, you’re sitting here you’re saying it, and they could say it about each of us, Rachael that you’re sitting here, I’m sitting here. But, the thing is that when you listen to someone’s story, and that’s why Beyond Blue’s good and other places that advocate people to do stories. That the struggles, and things like that, that people go through and it doesn’t mean that anyones any better than another person.
No, not at all.
It’s that you’re just in certain places in your life and I think at times we have to remember that if we keep opening up the baggage we’re carrying, we’re going to keep wearing the same clothes. So, we have to get to a point that we put the baggage behind, we say the clothes are to small or there too big, or it’s not the fashion, and we have to choose a new lot of clothes. I think that’s it, and I like clothing because if you look at metaphors, as you take off each layer you’re getting rid of the old, and I think that’s great. It works very well in a subconscious manner too.
I think it’s a valid point though because we’ve all been through different things in our lives and we’re all have other challenges that we will have in the future I’m sure, but it’s all a matter of surrounding yourself with people that you love, and surrounding yourself with people that are on the same page, and can be there to support you through those as you can be to support them through other things as well. You’re saying about the awareness before, I didn’t realise that the stats were as high as that, what you’re talking about, so it’s fascinating.
I think that also what we need to do is that sometimes people they feel they need a lot of people around and to be able to do, but there’s also a lot of stuff inside and self empowerment’s extremely important and to learn to love yourself and to be happy being by yourself. If you can get to that point, if you can’t, there’re places that can help you to get to that place. Headspace is very good for young people, I really do highly recommend it, I’ve had a lot of good feedback over the years from Headspace.
What’s Headspace?
It’s a place where younger people can go and they can get certain counselling. It’s free, to a certain point, teaches meditation and things like that. So, for our young people, it’s good to have those things. There’re things for men’s line and all these different things. Wonder what we might do is we might put a list together and put them up on your site and I might put them up on mine too. It’s a really good thing because when I was talking to this group last night, they didn’t know, and a lot of people don’t know. Never be fearful to ask, never be fearful to drop Rachael a line, even private messenger if you wanna have that discretion because that’s fair enough you’re a person who deserves respect, and same with me. It doesn’t mean we’re gonna talk about you next Monday, we totally respect everyone like that. I’ve gone through my amount of baggage, I’m sure you have too Rachael, we all do. It’s what life is, it’s how we live and learn.
Those that say that they haven’t, I don’t think that there in the real world. It’s sort of part of the path so it’s part of the journey, it’s part of the whole process, and I think adversity is good because it shows you different lessons, and then you’re able to move forward and then go on and learn other lessons throughout the life. If people wanted to get in contact with you Katherine how would they do that?
They’d do it by the phone number you’re going to put up on your screen.
You know I’m not the fastest typer. 0408-411-865 there we go, I’m showing.
Everyone listening out there, what I’d like to do is to see if after ten weeks, we can see if Rachael’s quick at getting my phone number up there. We’ll do a survey and see how many people will say yeah she’s really good now she gets it up quickly.
She’s getting better she’s been practising .
She actually remembers your number now.
Yeah, I know I should practise, but that should be fun. Alright, and if anybody wants to get in touch with me in regard to homes or real estate in the Hawkesbury or abroad, my contact number is 45779964 I can speak faster than I can type sometimes. Equally, you can catch me on the website rachaelgoldsworthy.com.au.
So thank you very much for everyone being online and Dane for checking in and saying hello, and Katherine for your great advice as always, and we look forward to seeing everybody on the next episode.
See you next Monday.
Thank you so much for taking time out listening to today’s episode, if you have any questions on the process of buying, selling, leasing, or strata management, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes, and I would really appreciate it if you could spread the word by liking and sharing this episode with your family and friends.
I’m Rachael Goldsworthy, and I look forward to catching up with you on the next episode of the Drive Home to Hawkesbury.

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On this episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury, Rachael speaks with Councillor Sarah Richards on local events and issues including one subject close to everyone’s heart the proposed Bells Line of Road Castlereagh corridor. Please share this community link and join us online for the open discussion, thank you.

Sarah is a local resident, dedicated to her family and community. She is a former Lawyer who is passionate about the Hawkesbury and serves the local community in many ways including Human Services Advisory Committee, Hawkesbury Civics and Citizenship Committee, Waste Management Advisory Committee, Hawkesbury Sports Council, Hawkesbury Tourism Advisory Committee and Community Service as Director, Fitzgerald Aged Care, Member, Community Board of Advice – Hawkesbury Hospital, Secretary – Hawkesbury Torch Bearers for Legacy, Secretary – Rotary Club of Kurrajong/North Richmond.

I Live, Love, Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into today’s episode.

I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and welcome to The Drive Home to Hawkesbury, where I believe every home as a story. And I love sharing those stories on real estate in the Hawkesbury with you.
Here we share the best ways to add value to your property. How to avoid the common mistakes people make when buying and selling property. And how to get the maximum return on your investment with a focus on supporting local business.
I live love Hawkesbury and can’t wait to get into to today’s episode with you. So let’s get started.
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I’m on The Drive Home to Hawkesbury joined by Councillor Sarah Richards. How are you Sarah?
I’m really good Rachael. How are you today?
Really well thank you. I do apologise to the people that have been waiting online for us, we have had a bit of a delay in regards to internet, so sometimes when the wind is blowing the wrong way, we can get bumped off. So, apologise to everybody that’s watching, but thank you very much for everyone being patient.
So tell me, Sarah, what’s it like being a councillor?
I love being a councillor. To me, as someone who’s worked in the community and in the not-for-profit sector for many, many years, it’s a great way for me to be able to be involved in other aspects of the community. And actually be able to take things to the chamber, to get voted on where they can actually can be implemented and make changes to our communities. So, I’ve had some initiatives since being elected that I’m really proud of. And to me, it makes sure that you’ve got that voice and that ability to actually make positive change.
No, that’s terrific. And we met many years ago at one of the first Hawkesbury Rotary meetings that I went to-
We did.
When I first had into Hawkesbury and it was fantastic. And you’re, I believe, still involved with Rotary in some scale?
I am. Yes. So we met about eight years ago through Hawkesbury Rotary, which was a breakfast club. Which met getting up very early and dragging my little kids along with me to those meetings. But now I am, I’m still a member. This time I’ve carried on North Richmond Rotary. Although, their meetings are on Tuesday nights and so are my councillor commitments, so I’m unable to actually get along to many of those meetings now, because of that Tuesday clash. But I do try and get along to other things if I can.
Yeah, it’s hard to be everything to everybody, and I think that it’s difficult sometimes to get to all of the meetings. But at the end of the day, you’re a great community advocate and you’re doing a good job at what you are doing. So thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much. Just one minute, Rachael. I’ve got a deliveryman who’s just turned up at a door. So, sorry, I’ll just tell him-
That’s okay.
Yeah, no –
Back to reality, there you go.
Your life is a reality indeed. And tell me, what is a day like in the life of Sarah Richards? What do you do? What do you get up to?
Okay. So the day always starts with the kids. Got three little ones. Two girls and a little boy. So getting them ready, dressed for school, lunches backed, off to school by 8:30, is always the start to my day. Or weekdays anyway. Weekends is always around sport. Netball, soccer, things like that. So, once they’re taken care of at school, during the day, that’s when I fit in all my other commitments.
I try to fit the meetings between the school hours, although I am out, try to keep it about three nights a week as well with other commitments. So, a day would involve meeting with residents. Talking to residents. Answering emails. And also meetings with my other charities that I’m on the boards of as well. Organising fundraising events. Doing all that sorta stuff. So I never really get a day off. I’ve always got some commitments during the day. Usually centred around the community. So it keeps me busy and honestly it’s my passion. It’s what I love.
No, terrific. I’ve always known you to be a big community advocate and you’re involved in so many boards and community organisations as you do. So, what is a councillor for those people that are watching? What’s involved? What do you have to do when you go to the meetings? Those sorts of things.
Yeah, sure. So, just to explain people, when you say you’re a councillor, you always have to clarify that that means you’re an elected representative in local government. And not somebody that people go in, explain their life issues to, so you have to always clarify with that. But being a councillor is, in Hawkesbury, we have one LGA, there’s no wards, so it’s one group of 12 councillors. The 12 of us sit in chamber. We debate things. We have business papers where the staff provide us with reports and recommendations to vote on things for the community.
A lot of that used to involve planning and DAs, but those, actually going out to what’s called an IHAP, which is an Independent Hearing and Assessment Panel. Where we have professional people with a background in planning, who actually decide those sorts of things. Though we are more focused on community aspects. Things don’t just happen in the chamber, we also have a range of committees that councillors also sit on, that meet regularly throughout the year.
I’m on quite a few of those committees. Waste Management. Human Services Advisory Committee, where I get to be involved in affordable housing initiatives, which is something that’s passionate for me. And also looking at the homeless issue. I’m council’s representative on the Hawkesbury Sports Counsel, which I absolutely love. And that goes to the whole four-year term. So we meet additionally once a month, on a Monday night, to actually talk about the sporting grounds and make sure the facilities are up-to-date. And they’ve got amenities on the grounds and things like that, to make sure that our local kids, and actually adults alike, actually have really good sporting facilities. Because I’m always a big advocate for sport and the benefits, socially and physically that that brings.
No, absolutely. I’m exhausted just thinking about all those things in your day. Trying to keep up-
Well, I’ve got a lot of help. People help me. And the kids actually love it, and they love what mum does. And sometimes, they’ll be an odd meeting, 3:30 or 4:00 of an afternoon and it’s quite a few of us councillors who do have young kids. And we might just have to bring them along to the chamber, not a proper council meeting, but a committee meeting or something. Or a residential meeting. Bring them along to the chamber, they know the room that they need to go in, with the big whiteboard and they behave while we do that. So, they’ve become accustomed to doing that as well. It’s become part of their life really, is knowing what mum does.
No, that’s great. And essentially you are a mum and you are a councillor, but I guess when things get involved locally, we’re very passionate about what we do and so forth. But I guess too, with messages that come across when you’ve gotta deliver good news and not so good news to people it’s not always an easy task to do. How do you manage that and have you noticed that there’s been anything that’s happening lately that might be affected by that? Or some people are feeling that way?
Absolutely. The biggest thing in our community right now, and it’s at both ends of our community, in Oakville and also Gross Vale, Kurrajong area. Is the corridor announcement by the state government that happened a few weeks ago. That has probably been the most predominant issue of late. Other than probably the rate rise, which is something we can talk about later if you like? So-
Absolutely.
The corridors have caused anxiety, I understand that. A lot of uncertainty in the community. Especially with people, where the corridor has gone through their home or their property, but not only that, those adjacent to it as well. So, I think working behind the scenes, looking at other ideas and ways, and pathways the corridor could take. Also speaking to people. Asking them if a corridor is necessary at all. And also, making sure that in any discussion that involves corridors, where I’m taking feedback directly back to Dominic Perrottet, Stuart Ayers, and state government. Is that we actually do get a third crossing at Hawkesbury River, no matter what political party or where you stand, we all are agreed and united on the fact that we do need another crossing of that river. To actually help alleviate some of the traffic concerns. And we do need a significant infrastructure investment in the Hawkesbury.
So, while I’m taking that corridor feedback back to state government, I’m also letting them know, “Do not take a third crossing or another bridge off the agenda, because that is extremely important.” But something I do want to make known to everybody, who may not all have been following what Council’s doing, because this is a state government initiative, it’s nothing that Council can have any power to stop or put forward. But at our last Council meeting, we did come up with a 12-nil resolution moving forward on the corridors to show the community that we’ve listened to them and we’re behind them. And that Council unanimously agrees that we need to actually come up with a better solution than the one that has been put forward.
And I can absolutely confirm that the state government has listened to that. Dominic’s listened to that. He’s holding forums today, at his office, at the University campus at Richmond. Separate ones for the M9 and also for the Bells Line of Road corridor. And consultation, this is a consultation period, I can’t stress that enough, that finishes on the first of June. And from that point, the government will look at all of those submissions and then give, hopefully come up with some sort of announcement or an outcome based on all of that data.
No, terrific. In regards to that, with people that are watching and don’t know where those roads are going, where’s pretty much the start point that’s proposed for the corridor for Bells Line of Road? And also the M9? Or X9?
Yeah. The Bells Line of Road corridor connects to the Castle Road corridor, which is something that has, the initial one had been gazetted, I think it’s since 1951. Oh sorry, not gazetted, sorry, actually drawn on a map. So people sort of had bought property or made decisions in their lives based on where they thought that was going to be. The current proposal deviates from that. It crosses the river at Castle Road and comes up, when you look at the map, quite far left of Bells Line of Road, up through Gross Vale. And then it tunnels underneath Kurrajong Heights and connects to Bells Line of Road from there.
With the M9 Orbital, it goes through Shanes Park, Marsden Park, and then connects up to Oakville, but it does stop at a certain point there with plans in the future to connect it to the Central Post. Although, where it stops now, isn’t giving anyone any certainty about where it’s going to go from that point on. So, I know that a lot of people have taken those concerns direct to transport for New South Wales. And I’ve taken them direct to Dominic as well. So the only thing I can stress, like I said all along, is just keep emailing, sending your letters in. All by the first of June, that is the cutoff date. And the government will definitely be assessing from there, what they can do to try and come up with something better for the community.
Yeah, absolutely. You make some good points there. And I think the Bells Line of Road Corridor Action Group, they’ve organised for submissions to be written and I know that you’re in support of submissions to being written. And obviously you would be available to help people if they needed some support and you’ve been active in that group as well ’round the stand.
I have so people in that group, I’m very active on Facebook, so people in that group tag my name so that it highlights to me that they’ve got a question. And I go on and I answer those questions and I’m engaging with people all of the time. As much as I can. I’m emailing people, they’re emailing me. Contacting me by phone. I give out my private number to people all the time, because it’s usually the one that’s in my back pocket. The Council one’s usually in my handbag. So I’m more than happy for the people to contact me on my private number, I don’t have any barriers in that regard. And I just wanna make myself as available to people as I can.
And that’s what we love about you, Sarah. You are available for people. You are accessible. You do answer your phone. She messages back very quickly. And she’s always been a great community advocate, so we do appreciate that. Thank you.
Thank you. I try my best, although at some circumstances I do have to put the phone down and actually, maybe do some homework with the kids. So, try and balance, it’s all about balance, right?
That’s why you are a good mum too. Those three beautiful children. So there’s lots of responsibility for you, but I’m gonna ask you a couple of hard questions. And maybe they’re not hard questions, but they’re certainly things that have been raised in the community with the people that I’ve been speaking to, and the acquisition process for the corridor. 200,000 barrier for people. They’re looking at purchasing a property. If they’re wanting to sell their property. If they wanna add value to their property. There’s questions around whether they should or whether they shouldn’t. What’s your opinion in regards to that?
Yeah. So that’s absolutely valid. And we had that discussion about the 200,000 cap on DAs in counsel at our last meeting. And our general manager addressed a lot of those concerns. So if a corridor does get gazetted. If you are in that pathway, you will have a limit. Up to 200,000 dollars on putting in DAs or Development Applications. To do things to your property. Now, I understand that causes people grief and concern, because you know they’ve made an investment in a certain area that’s their home. And now they’re like, “What can I do with my property? Should I do anything with my property? Should I even spend that money if I wanted to do something?” So those concerns are valid.
I can’t stress enough at this point, the road is not gazetted. So, even though that’s a genuine question people have, at this point it’s not something that they need to be 100 percent relying on. Until something does get gazetted. Which then of course, brings in to play the compulsory acquisition. On those properties that would be in the pathway.
And I was at the Transport New South Wales meeting at Oakville on Wednesday night, where a gentleman had this specific question. He said to me, “What happens to my property?” He was an elderly gentleman. He said, “So in 30 years, I probably won’t be around anymore, so what happens in seven to eight to ten years, if I want to sell and go somewhere else for my retirement?” And I said, “It’s absolutely a valid point.” And apparently there might be some criteria for early acquisition? I need to double check on that. And see if that’s possible.
But what I’m reiterating is, you don’t hear in the media a lot of negative stories, or a lot of bad stories about the government ripping people off. The government won’t do that. They make sure that people are fairly compensated for their land. There’ll be the odd case where someone does take the government to court because they believe their entitled to more. But those are usually settled and the government then moves forward with it’s project plan. So, I would reassure people that the government’s not out to rip them off. If anyone is in that pathway, of any infrastructure project, like West Connects or anything like that, they do get fairly compensated.
No, that’s a good fact point that you make. And I think it’s important for people to have an awareness, I suppose, and an education as to what’s actually happening. What has happened. And what’s potentially going to happen as opposed to what hasn’t happened. So, yeah, I think also too, in regards to the corridor, the Bells Line of Road Corridor Action Group, they’ve got the website. So if anybody, sorry, the Facebook page, so if anybody wanted to go onsite to that, they could have a look at that and see what’s going on in the community. But equally, you said that you are available. You’re happy to be tagged in different things on Facebook-
Absolutely.
Yeah, you’re very contactable to discuss those matters with the local residents.
Yeah. I’m happy for people to send me text messages. Private messages on Facebook. People message our Liberal Party page. All the time. Our Facebook page. It doesn’t bother me, whichever way they want to get in contact. Details from the Council website. So feel free to contact me anyway you want.
Yeah sure. And what is the Council website, whilst were on that?
It’s hawkesbury, I think it’s .newsouthwales.gov.au, I think it is.
AU? Yes. That’s okay, we don’t get you to look yourself up that often, so-
No, I really don’t look myself up that often. To be honest, I do go on to the website quite a bit. To access other documentation, because they really do file and store things there really well, and someone says, “Oh, I wanna know what the latest community results are?” Or, “Where was that flood strategy document?” They are really well stored on Hawkesbury Council’s website. It’s actually run really, really well that website. And it’s an absolute wealth of information for people to go on there and find things. And it’s updated all the time with what’s going on.
Great resource to have and we’ll certainly, I’ll put a link up on the web here just so that people have that later on. And Dane’s saying, “Hello.” Thank you. Hello, Dane.
Hi Dane. Hello. Excellent. Well can I just say, with the website, I’m just bringing up something on my phone to have a look at the dates. We actually have, right now, some community consultation meetings, booked in. Because part of since being elected, or especially with our fit for the future strategy, which was to put the options of a rate rise to the community. We had to engage in quite heavy community consultation. And we’re actually doing some more of that coming up soon.
And I’ve just got the dates here, if I could run through them quickly, Rachael? If that’s okay?
Absolutely. ‘Cause the rate rise was next on my list to cover actually.
Perfect. Okay. So, the rate rise we’ll probably be the hottest topic at these next round of community consultation meetings. But what I want to stress to people in saying these dates is, the last round that we had, which was similar venues, we sometimes only got two or three people turning up. So, when people are quite engaged on social media and they’ve got a lot to say, either being critical or praising counsel or councillors. We really are trying to make sure that we’re engaging with the community face-to-face. One-on-one. Our head staff and directors and general manager are coming along for these meetings to make themselves available.
So, please get along to these consultation meetings as much as you can. I’ll just run through them very, very quickly. Excuse me, taking my eyes off the screen.
Windsor is Wednesday the 6th of June. North Rich on the 7th. Glossodia is the 12th. Pitt Town the 14th. Kurrajong the 18th. Colo Heights the 20th. Maraylya the 21st. And Saint Albans is Saturday the 23rd. So you can go on to Hawkesbury Council’s website or Facebook page and find those dates. And head along to your local meeting. Meet the councillors and meet the staff. If any concerns you have about any DAs on your property or anything like that, comes straight to the directors themselves.
Yeah sure. And in regards to the rate rises. Is there big rate rises on the horizon? Or what’s the forecast there?
Yeah. So, which is the independent body that needs to agree to any counsel raising their rates above the rate pick. Agreed this week to raise Hawkesbury City Council rates by 31.3 % cumulative over the next three years. So what that means is that every year for the next three years, your rates will go up 9.5%. Plus whatever rate picking would be for the next financial year, that’s to be .3%.
So as of the first of July, when your rates come out again, the whole of the Hawkesbury is going to have that increase. Now, there’s no lie that all councillors didn’t vote for this rate rise and I’ve been, quite vocal in making sure people know which councillors did and didn’t vote for the rate rise and why. We are bound by the local government act to uphold resolutions of council, so I have to be very careful, what I say and how I say it. Because once a resolution does go through council, such as their endorsing the rate rise. That is a policy of council, the council laws need to support.
However, I can stick to the facts and say what I did and didn’t do and why. So, the four liberal councillors did not support the current rate rise, because it was based on a ratings structure that we believe was inequitable to certain sectors of our community. Predominantly, for people around Oakville, Maraylya. That had a spike in their land valuations during the last round of New South Wales actually looking at land values again.
Now under the government act, which is where Council has certain tools available to structure their rates. There’s what’s called a base rate. Now, a base rate is capped at 50%. So what that does, and then the rest, other 50% is based on the land value of the property. The current council structure, only caps the base rate at 30%, which meant 70% of people’s rates were based on the land vaulations. So, the four liberals did fight in the chamber, we wanted that 50% base rate capped at the highest possible legal limit that it could be. So that our residents who were facing higher land values, had the highest proportion, well the lowest proportion they possibly could to pay on rates based on their land values.
So, we were unsuccessful in putting that argument forward, 8 to 4. And the 30% base rate went through. So we do not and still do not support that structure. We’ve had a range of briefings, or rating workshops, since that day, where the 12 of us have sat in a room with the staff and tried to see if we can find another way forward for a different structure. But unfortunately, we haven’t come to a resolution in that regard. And as of the first of July, when the new rates come out, it’ll still be based on that ratings structure that was voted on last year. So, the SRV, so the Special Rate Variation, which then comes in to apply, or basically the rate rise from the first of July, will be based on a structure that I voted against when it was implemented.
So, I know they’re saying on average, it’s only going to be around a hundred dollar mark or so, for most people. But, when you’re talking about averages, you’re not talking about your pig and your pets. You’re talking about a few people in the middle, so there’s going to be some significant people who are hit. The people in Oakville who had their rates double overnight under the current restructure, from 1,900 to 41 dollar rate bills. Have now got the rate rise on top of that.
Now it’s come out that, while we said that we wouldn’t support this rate rise on this new structure. There was always a case that we probably did have to increase the rating call of funds that we have by a certain amount. But two thirds of our community, throughout our previous consultations, said that they did not support that option three. Which was that 31.3% that went through.
So two thirds did not support that. Although two thirds of the community also did support maybe some sort of a rise. Which maybe, it was option one, two, and three. Option one was to stay the same. Option two was a small incremental rise. And option three was your, gold-plated option. So there could’ve been room for option two, but again, I’m gonna be honest. Even though we consulted the community, it went out to public exhibition, all of those sorts of things. We really didn’t get back huge numbers from the community during that process. On what they wanted us to do.
So, to me, moving forward as a councillor. And that’s why I wanted to make sure I highlighted those dates of those next round of consultations coming up, is because community engagement is extremely important to me. But I find that people sometimes on the whole don’t get engaged ’til it hits them personally. Which is the way life works, that’s a normal thing. So part of my role moving forward is to make sure people can get as engaged as they possibly can in their local government. And what their councilor’s doing and what’s going on, so that they are informed. And that they can actually have say.
Yeah, I think it’s a really good point. I mean the message I’m getting from you is that to get involved. To go to the meetings. To have your say. To have a discussion, an open discussion that can be constructive. ‘Cause at the end of the day, you’re a mum. And you’re a person, just like all of us. And we all have different personalities and lives and families outside of our work. So you’re just there doing your very best that you can do for the community and you’re in support of the community and available.
So we do appreciate that and it’s great that you’ve highlighted those dates. I’ll try and put up a link to the website, so that people have that. Moe’s saying hello, he’s on the line. How are you Moe?
I met up with Moe in the Feng Shui conference in China, a few years back-
Ah, excellent!
I hope he’s doing well. We’ll catch up with you again soon. I’m going down to the conference in Melbourne, so basically the next weekend or the weekend after that. But it’s been really good to talk to you today, Sarah. And I think it’s unpacked a few myths, possibly. And also, people will know the real Sarah Richards and where you’re at and what you’re doing for council. And I think too, in regards to the community, it’s so important to get involved. Put your hand up and just interact. And I’m sure Sarah would love to hear from you and help you with any solutions that you have. The date is the first of June for the corridor, to get those in, is that right?
First of June, absolutely.
And then, if we look at doing any other submissions or if you’ve got any other comments in regards to what’s going on the community, definitely get in contact with Sarah. If they wanted to contact you, how would they do that? Other than Facebook?
Yes. All our details as councillors are on the council website. So if you just go to the Hawkesbury Council website. Look up councillors, they’re there. People are also free to contact me on Facebook, private message me. On my Sarah Richard’s private page. Or they can also go to Hawkesbury Liberal Team, where I have a page as well. And all councillors were also given a page, up and running through council. So, Councillor Sarah Richards is another Facebook page they can go to. Email me. Call me. Whatever they want to do. I’m available to chat all the time.
No, that’s terrific. Well thank you so much for your time today, Sarah. I really appreciate it and thank you to everybody being on the line and saying hello. I think Margaret featured earlier.
Well thank you to your community. I appreciate you giving me this chance to come on and have a chat. I think it’s a great thing what you’re doing. And bringing on different aspects of the community on to your show just to have a chat and highlight these sorts of things. I thank you.
No, you’re most welcome. And that’s what I’m all about too. And we’ve got a common bond in that regard. Community and advocacy in the area. And I just want to help and get the best outcome for everybody. So, thanks for joining me on this episode. Thank you to everybody and we will catch up with you on the next episode. See you Sarah.
Great. Thank you. Bye!
Thank you. Buh-bye.
Thank you so much for taking time out, listening to today’s episode. If you have any questions on the process of buying, selling, leasing, or strata management, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me. Be sure to subscribe on iTunes. And I’d really appreciate it if you could spread the word by liking and sharing this episode with your family and friends.
I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I look forward to catching up with you on the next episode of The Drive Home to Hawkesbury.

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