Today I am coming to you live from Melbourne Airport after just attending the IFSA Feng Shui Australian Chapter conference. I had a great time and learnt so much about Feng Shui.

I apologise for the noisy airport broadcast but if you have any questions on buying, selling, leasing or strata management, please give me a call on 4577 9964 to have a chat.

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

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A Strata Report is just like ordering a pest & building when you are purchasing a residential property. A Strata Report or s.108 formerly known as s.164 certificate helps purchasers find out all the relevant information on the property when looking at buying into a Strata/Community or Company Titled property.
This report is separate to a pest and building inspection however it gives a snapshot of the records held by the Strata Manager on behalf of the Owners Corporation and an overview and history on the building or complex. Items included in these reports could include the following:

• Current Ownership
• Ledgers of the property they are looking at purchasing?
• Quarterly levies for the property and date at which they are paid?
• Voting rights?
• Unit entitlement?
• Past, present or proposed Special Levies (additional contributions outside your quarterly levies that may be raised for building defects or major works)?
• Does the Strata Scheme comply with Fire Requirements, Work Health & Safety Obligations and Asbestos Management?
• Is there any information in the records approving animals? Are animals permitted?
• How much is in the sinking fund and Administrative Fund? Are any of the funds in deficit?
• Are there past, present or proposed legal matters?
• Identify any Building Defects or Home Owner Warranty Claims for Defects;
• Identify any Breaches of By-Laws (Rules and Regulations for this building);
• Income and Expenditure with proposed Major Expenditure;
• What is the current value of the building?
• Is the building insured and if so adequately insured? (details of the insurance and cover);
• Are there any compliance related matters within the records such as window and balcony compliance?
• Is there a Capital works Forecast? (a report prepared detailing what the levy contributions should be over the next 10-15 years including detailed maintenance);
• Are there any known disputes within the Strata Scheme;
• Copies of Annual General Meeting Minutes, Extraordinary General Meeting Minutes and Executive Committee Meeting Minutes;
• Copies of building reports, extracts from compliance reports.

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 episode. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy on the drive home to Hawkesbury and I’ve just finished doing a routine ingoing inspection report for attendant that’s moving into a property at Mcgraw Hill and they’re super excited as are we for them as they’re moving into their new home and a new chapter in their life. I’m on my way back now to the office to complete her astrologer inspection with somebody that has booked that in with us this morning. Now that inspection has been booked because somebody is looking at purchasing a strata property, that strata property, it’s actually located in South Windsor and there is quite a few strata properties in and around South Windsor and scattered throughout the Hawkesbury as well. So when you’re purchasing a property, your combined. So we’ll go through the contract for sale with you but also help you identify what type of property it is.
So sometimes there is a strata property and sometimes it can be torrens title, sometimes it can be limited title, sometimes it can be company title. So they’re all just different ways to identify the type of property that it is and how it should be identified in that regard. Um, with this particular strata property, what the inspector is going to be doing is coming into the office having a look through the books for that particular strata property and owners’ corporation and just seeing how healthy it is, you know, basically it’s, it’s Kinda like, um, when, you know, when you buy a house and you do a pest and building inspection and just want to make sure that the house is absolutely perfect or at least know what the worst case scenario is with the house before you move into it so that you can work towards getting those things fixed.
But equally that’s what a strata report does. So somebody will come into the office of the strata manager who has that particular property or managers that particular property for the owners corporation. And then they’ll just go through the books and records and anything pertaining to that owner’s corporation. Then they’ll give a report to that particular purchase on what the state of the nation is in regards to that strata property. And um, you know, whether there’s any things to flag. So whether the administration or sinking fund is not as healthy as what it could have been or whether there’s things that are coming up like expenses for painting that may not have been disclosed or there might be, you know, a swimming pool that needs to be fixed or ongoing maintenance problems with that particular strata building. So, um, there are just a few things people may want to be looking at. Gentleman’s just walking in trust, the, the crossing there, we’ll let him go. And, um, yeah, just a few things in regards to strider and what you’re at doing when you’re purchasing a strata property. If anybody’s got any questions or comments in regards to real estate strata, all things property, I’m always happy to help. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and I look forward to catching up with you on the next episode.
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 catches up with with mother of five, Naturopath, Kathryn Hams with some further insight on the questions raised this week from last week’s podcast. Lots to cover and something for everyone in this Community Noticeboard episode, looking forward to catching up with you all online soon, Rachael 🙂

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 episode. I’m Rachael Goldsworthy and today I’m lucky enough to be joined by Katherine Hams, naturopath and local residents. How are you, Catherine? I’m good. Thank you. And how you going today, Rachel? I am going exceptionally well. I do see a little bit of haze in the sky though. I don’t know whether everybody else is experiencing it in the Hawkesbury. Apparently there’s a few burn offs in the Hawkesbury and today. You’re seeing it over your way? I definitely am. I could smell it when I was in Richmond about a half an hour ago, so paypal that investment and things like that. I think that might’ve put even a warning out on the TV about it, but just to take note and to look after themselves with the asthma. But I think when we have fog and it holds it down, that’s really bad too.
It doesn’t give it the chance to escape. Yeah. And the son can’t get through to burn it off either. So. No, it’s not that I’m a meteorologist though, Rachel. I’ve not got that cap yet. I’m working towards it. I’ve gotten my name engage. I might be partially. I’ve seen your rain gauge and I think it does work. It’s good idea. Well that was what my point was. There hasn’t been much rain lately. I was talking to one of the farmers have affluence. I’ve worked out west. Why Out West? And they said that they are expecting rain in my from November last year. They still hadn’t had a drop since November. So yeah, when you don’t have damn water and you don’t have river water to tap into, um, you know, it’s pretty tight when it comes to the water, it’d be a very hard life in some ways, wouldn’t it, to be out on the land and to be dependent on how the weather’s going to be.
And if you weren’t any good at doing rain dances, you’d be pretty well had a beard. I reckon we’ll have to get out bras, ell rods out and start sort of dividing, chasing definitely on the way, you know, it’s right. Well we should get Melissa falling to involved with that. She does the women’s circles and the dancing and then you’re pretty good at the women’s circle style of things as well and catching up with everybody and talking and women’s retreats. So I think it’s a definite weekend in the milking. Yep. That’s it. So what happened on the weekend? Yes, a good point. Um, I actually went to the holistic wellness and spiritual expo, which was held out at this at North Richmond on the weekend and was a lot of fun. Lots of people, different modalities. Um, there was a medium there, Alan Hamel, not too sure whether people are aware with him or not, but he actually listens to the animal spirits and guides and things like that.
And it was just fascinating. Um, I had a and there’s lots of vendors out there. There was lots of people that had some really good staff crystals and tie dye person there, I think in some other clothing. Yeah. And Melissa had a Doterra, the oils that were there and supply was absolutely explicit. I believe the flowers were done by [inaudible] house and that was fantastic. They looked beautiful as usual be shared out to Laura, how are you? And um, everybody was there and um, there was some massage therapists, there was some Canadian ologists, there was some counselors, there was all sorts of modalities, a lot, lots of fun and um, lots of things to do and uh, lots of oils purchase. But I had an interesting, I was just getting coffee as a matter of fact, as I was walking out of the sort of, um, I don’t know in the afternoon and I was grabbing coffee as a break at the fair and I came back and as I was walking past the medium, um, table ACL, I need to speak to you, like you just read to me, just like we’re just having a bit of a chat.
And then, um, my dog that’s passed away, Nigel came into the conversation. I don’t know anybody that’s listening that has had a dog that spends very special pass away or you know, I know Katherine, you’ve had a dog passed recently and everybody, you know, they’re part of the family. They’re part of the bigger picture and it was just nice to and things that they knew about this dog. For those of you who don’t know, my dog was paralyzed before he, he passed away in the vet’s couldn’t work it out. And that’s exactly what the medium said. This dog that is with you every day was paralyzed. You sat with it for the last week and you couldn’t, you couldn’t do anything. He didn’t know what to do, but the doe wants to know that he’s okay and he’s passed on the other side. I’m just thinking on these medium now, this inflammation that, you know, there’s so many different ways an animal can pass and um, you know, for him to know that it was paralyzed and that I sat with it for the last week and that was part of the family and so forth. It was just, um, you know, it’s good to good to hear. I suppose. So, yeah. Interesting.
I think that, um, you know, when you pay skeptical and I’m in respect to everyone lived beliefs and thoughts and you know, the, you know, all that sort of jazz or whatever, but I mean at the end of the day, we all have those inner beliefs and when someone comes up and they do their particular eyes aspects of something to you that no one could have known you really. If you’re a nonbeliever, your hats gotta come off and you’re scratching your head. And I have to rethink this one guy.
Absolutely. There was another circumstance actually, and I’m sure other people listening on the line have had their own experiences too. But this wasn’t to do with me. This is sort of one of the people in the crowd. He did a demonstration of the actual medium ship and there was a lady in the crowd and he and he sort of pointed across the people. There was two people sitting beside one another. Then he sort of prone dean on, on this particular lady. They said, Oh, you visited the grave lately of the mother figure. And that was her mother in law as it turned out. And this mother in law, the tombstone, you’ve changed that completely. You’ve just done that and you’ve made it look pretty. And, um, she wanted to let you know that everything’s okay and that there was a list that you helped with prior to her passing.
And that’s exactly what this lady did. She’d gone to the tombstone recently. She’d read down the whole tombstone with the kids, which he smoked to the mother in law as she always does. And um, she actually showed us photos in her phone of way, she changed the tombstone and she’d only been there recently, like within days of the actual medium ship and she had written the list with this particular lady prior to her passing and she had gone through everything and she does talk to her on a regular basis. And as you say, whether you’re an unbeliever or not, you’ve really got to ask the question, can these all be to coincidences or are there actual things that do happen that are unexplainable but explainable in some otherwise?
Yeah. And I think that’s a topic. It’s like so many others. There could be so long, like how long is a piece of string? But the thing is at the end of the day, as long as you respect each other to have your own beliefs, that’s really all that matters. And you know, if you get confident in it, that’s great too. So no, I completely agree. I think that was comfortable.
Yes, yes. It’s nice to, to hear that they’re doing okay. And then, you know, Nigel as well. And um, you know, now I’ve got little brucey he’s taken his not taking his place but taking his spot on the table, so I’m part of the family now and um, he’s a very big part of what we all do. So
yeah, really good
and are believe you, um, had an interesting discussion with Sandra, your naturopath in regards to, um, all things has she motos and others.
Tell me about that. When did we, when we actually went to thyroid [inaudible] and it was regarding how the thyroid and how the hormones work and how it actually goes either into hypo or hyperthyroidism, which then can develop groves or to Hashimoto’s, but that also links in with your adrenals and fatigue. A lot of things. Somebody body interlinks. Look, it was a really good talk. The trouble is with these things, when you’re talking on these sort of physical and what happens to your body, your terminology can get to a point where it gets a little bit overwhelming for people who do not, are not in that practice of speaking like that. And I mean it was a good chat, but I think I had learned lessons that maybe we needed to actually break it down into smaller bits and I own that. I’ll own that because it’s the feedback that everyone gives us a new Aveda. Same, I think, Rachel, that feedback the most invaluable source of being able to guide a program or a talk or anything you do for someone into the proper aspect that actually works. And without the feed back, we don’t know what works. So I don’t ever look at feedback as negative. I’ll look at it as a positive way to make a change because without it we don’t.
No. And that’s what we love about these shows is that the questions, comments that we get on a regular basis about what people want to hear. So important, but I think it’s a valuable point you making in a practitioner’s world. Those sorts of things like us saying, okay, well this is a phone. Whereas that might be a, there might be a technical term for that particular phone. And it’s the same thing with what you do. You know, there’s technical terms which you just use as normal, every diamond axilla, whereas some people just are not familiar with that and that’s okay too, and as you say, you can tweak it and change it and make it to um, to suit the, um, the, the lay person as we all are when it comes to these sorts of things. And you’re bringing some great topics to the fore because a lot of topics that people don’t realize or you know, thyroid is a big one as she murders is another big one. And not only people just locally, but you’re getting them from Florida. US, you’ve got UK, you’ve got people everywhere tuning Indonesia, which is fantastic.
I think what’s happened with the, a thorough discussion is, is become a thyroid madness and people jump on bandwagons and they do it with a lot of things. It’s like the next phase is this or the next fad or whatever. And it’s the same with health as well. It’s the same with dieting. There’ll be a particular diet that comes and everyone jumps on the bandwagon of that diet and it can be dangerous to jump onto those sort of bandwagons and so I mean from our point of view of the center, because we both suffer Hashi is, it was to try and make it that people actually understood what it was about the symptoms because the thing is that you could write off saying, oh, I’ve got hashtag notice blah blah blah, but you may have something different and you’re not looking after it. It could develop. So yeah, you’re totally correct. Yeah. We’re hitting a lot of places and it’s because this is a worldwide topic too. But um, yeah, thank you. It’s good. And we’ll keep going with those and we’ll just keep learning as we do.
Terrific. That’s fantastic. And talking about learning. I’m going to catch up with the mayor of Hawkesbury City Council next week. I’m on Tuesday at 12 noon. And anybody that’s got any questions or comments for me that wants to chime in at that time, I will put a broadcast online. Um, but it’s going to be fascinating just hearing what a day in the life of Amir’s life, what the responsibilities are for her and how she conducts herself in the office and the best way forward for the Hawkesbury Council and also for the local constituents. I think it’s going to be a fascinating topic.
Yeah. I think a lot of people will, I hope they do tune into that because it’s an open opportunity now for them to be able to, as you say, ask those questions or even if they can’t, Rachel, they could email your message you on facebook questions so that you could even have some list of questions ready to go for it and you know, they could turn in later and listen to the answers to that. So if they can’t get on board when you’re on board because of work, there’s always an open opportunity to go beforehand and, you know, work out what they want to say and get the answers.
Oh, definitely. As there is, um, you know, contracting yourself and talking about that. This is Katherine’s number, just in case people want to get in contact with you. To give Rachel a cat, she got my phone number up and I didn’t have to ask a very good, very good. Um, but I also had one other question during the week, um, from people in regards to deposits and people putting deposits down on houses. We had one particular situation on the weekend where a buyer really liked a property but they weren’t in a position to sign contracts, but they were willing to put a deposit down because they had to speak to the solicitor on Monday. Now sometimes that is amenable to both parties being the vendor or the seller and also the purchaser, but sometimes it’s not. And in this case it was all parties agreed that it was the weekend they weren’t able to speak to their solicitor, so they were going to wait till Monday and then signed contracts, move forward with that on that particular day.
Which is absolutely fine for a lot of reasons because I think all purchases in good faith go to an open home thinking they’re going to buy a house. They want to put a deposit down and they want to move forward with it. Not, oh, I don’t want to sign a contract, I don’t want to put a deposit down and those sorts of things. So it is possible for people to, in good faith, put a deposit down. It doesn’t necessarily mean it wholesale property like it used to do that they used to call that a holding deposit or some sort of thing like that. But that’s not the way it works these days. Um, you know, unless you have a deposit, unless you have a signed contract and an exchange contract, you’re not officially off the market. So it really needs to be an agreement, a gentleman’s agreement between two parties, I suppose that they’re okay, that process and they’re okay to, you know, as it were except the deposit.
And then one day move forward with the exchange of contracts which they’ve done in this case. And it’s been a good outcome for everybody. So if anybody’s got any questions in regards to real estate or any questions in regards to exchanges or deposits in regards to those properties, I’m happy to help. I can be contacted on full five, double seven, double nine slash six four or website Rachael Goldsworthy.com dot EU and Catherine, do you have a website that anybody can go to? The therapy and wellness have on facebook. So that’s one I’ve contacted me at or I’m like message you and I know you’ll put them in contact with me as well. So yeah. And anything else come up from. There was quite a few questions this week but we just sort of took the few key ones from the, the list. Was there anything else that you wanted to cover off before we finish up today?
No, not really. I think that, you know, it’s good that you just mentioned that about the deposit and everything. Can I actually get contracts beforehand from me, Rachel so that they can get this list, just look at it or is that something they don’t do? It’s quite a normal practice now. Yes. That people can get a copy of the contract prior to looking at a property and show that to their solicitors so that because a lot of properties, there’s multiple peoples and there’s wanting to look at it. There’s multiple offers so you don’t want to miss out on that particular property and it’s always good as you say, Castro to get ahead of the game and make sure that you’re organized to get a copy of the contract from the agent that you’re looking at the property through having a throat, your cell phone. When the contracts made up of many things including the details of the property.
The one, four, nine C, two B, which is the zoning. It will tell you whether the roads are going to be widened, whether there’s other things that flood zones involved with a drainage diagram that’s attached to the contract as well. So many things that are attached to the contract that you really need to be aware of. So I just say it’s good to get ahead of the game and and have a look at that beforehand. And then people are able to feel confident with that process. And okay, I’ve been through the contract, I’ve seen my solicitor tick that box and we’ve spoken about this before. There is a due diligence download that we can provide people when they’re looking at property. So if anybody wants a copy of that, we’re more than happy to provide that, um, and just help them and give them the extra seal of approval whilst they’re hitting towards buying their first home or even selling the first time.
Yeah. Oh, that’s good. Well that’s, I just wondered that and I wondered if that was something that was a practice you did, but I mean, as you said, uh, you need to have that exchange anyways, so it’s still really keeps it open, doesn’t it till that final exchange? Absolutely. Yeah. The property is not unconditional until it’s actually gone through the cooling off period and it expires on that cooling off period and once that happens and the deposits been paid, the property then moves into escrow. So it’s all a matter of making sure that the properties. And I guess that everybody does what they need to do to make it all happen and come together. But I think there can be some confusion around it that I capital if I put the point two five percent deposit, it’s my property and nobody else can buy it, that, that’s not actually the case and there is no such thing as a holding deposit. It’s just a deposit that you’ve put down in good faith. I’m here towards exchange and signature and exchange of those contracts to be able to move forward into the cooling off period and then to the unconditional, um, to settlement process.
Interesting. Well, um, thanks for being on the line everybody and thank you Kathryn for being on the line. As per usual. I’m, I’m not going to be here next week because I’m going to the Australian chapter of the funkshway conference which is being held in Melbourne, so it might get cash onto, um, hop on the line and say hi to everybody for me next week. He says, okay with you. That’d be terrific. And, um, anybody that’s got any questions or comments, we’d love to hear from you. We love seeing people on the line and we love hearing what people have to say. Any local events, any sporting organizations or any people in business that want to get the word out there about their great business, we’re happy to help in that regard. So, um, thank you for being online and we’ll catch up with everybody next week.
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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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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