On Wednesday, October 26, Nicki Taws of Greening Australia is coming to Yass to give a presentation on bird identification tips and some of the resources available. After her presentation, she will take participants on a walk through Yass Gorge to put the theory into practice.

The day will start at 9.30am at the Yass Memorial Hall where a light morning tea will be provided. Please RSVP by email tofloramaya76@gmail.com or phone 0403 817 420 for catering purposes.

Maya Potapowicz

Yass

Dear Editor

It is interesting to note in Bec Duncan’s letter of September, 26 that she actually does seem to understand the point of an election group is to encourage “above the line” voting, which is confusing given that she actively campaigned for people to Vote 1 Bec Duncan “below the line” at the expense of her group.    

In reply, I will channel Abraham Lincoln, who famously said “the ballot is stronger than the bullet”. Bec Duncan and “friends” can attack me all they like, although I don’t know why they bother. I am not a councillor, candidate or council staff member, just a ratepayer who has the right to support anyone I like and comment as I please. At the end of the day, the election result is all that counts and Group B simply didn’t convince enough voters they were up to the job of councillor.

The only candidate from the group to be elected then chose not to challenge for mayor at the first council meeting, in spite of her pre-election rhetoric, and failed at an attempt to be deputy mayor with only 2 votes from 9 councillors. As a good and learned friend of mine has said, it is hard to argue that this particular group was anything but an “epic fail”.

Time for Bec Duncan et al. to show a little sportsmanship, put the dummy back where it belongs and let us all move on and see what this new council can achieve.

Sheri Norton,

Binalong

Dear Editor

As someone who grew up in a small town, I had forgotten just how incredible our close-knit community can be. Happily, I was reminded of this when I married my bride Lauren at St Clements a few weeks ago.

We want to thank, firstly, Rev. Judy Heggart, who was actually the first Yass local we ever met, and who officiated a wonderful ceremony – light hearted and meaningful. We’d like to thank our neighbours Nick and Daphne for offering to have my parents stay in their granny-flat while they were here from overseas. Also, to neighbours Julie, Mary and Diane, who between them collected our mail and mowed our lawn while we were away. To Dale, who generously offered to drive us from the church to the reception at Gundaroo in his beautiful 1951 RMB Riley: thanks for driving, and even putting on a tie!

To our tradies who helped get the house ready for the onslaught of inlaws and outlaws, a big thank you as well.  Particularly Barry and Paul Bush, Alan Hill, Phil Waine, Phil Cleary and the best damned tiler in the Yass Valley, Rob Darmody. We started a year ago, and were ready literally four days before the wedding thanks to a last minute shower screen from the team at Yass Windscreens and Glass. There were plenty of other people who helped, and we just wanted to say thank you to everyone for reinforcing our faith in our local community. It’s not always perfect, but when even one of our councillors drops over some extra blankets, you know we’ve got a pretty great community. Thank you Yass, for making our big day really special, and we look forward to many more years contributing to this great place.

Nick Tyrrell,

Yass