• City of Bayswater mayor Dan Bull, Western Australian Liberal senator Dean Smith, Tennis Australia president Jayne Hrdlicka, Tennis West president Wayne Firns, Bayswater Tennis Club president Dan Kerrigan, with Issabella Sanchez (8) and Fynn Bushby (5). Photo by Max Laurent
TENNIS lovers are in for a treat after Bayswater Tennis Club opened its state-of-the-art clubrooms last Friday.
The original 1930s clubrooms underwent a $1.4 million rebuild and now include a 200-person function suite, players’ lounges, solar panels and an instant hot water system.
President Dan Kerrigan said the clubrooms are just the start of ongoing improvements to the club.
New hard courts for junior coaching are being installed at the end of the summer season.
Another $300,000 in funding, via a Local Jobs, Local People grant, will go towards the redevelopment of the playing courts, floodlights and accessible walkways at the Garratt Road club.
The rebuild was funded by the federal government, tennis club and Bayswater council.
“This is a community sports facility to be proud of, and I very much look forward to seeing the club’s 1000 plus members making the most of its excellent features for many years to come,” said Bayswater mayor Dan Bull.
MORE than 300 people have signed a petition calling for a community garden at the Inglewood Bowling and Sports Club.
Recently Stirling council reviewed 10 bowling clubs in the area and decided not to fund a refurbishment of the tatty Inglewood club house because of its age and the club’s declining membership.
Petitioners wrote that a community garden would help rejuvenate the Stancliffe Street club.
“After many attempts to identify a location for a community garden in the area, a suitable site has been found within the Inglewood Bowling and Sports Club lease area,” reads the petition.
“It is large, flat and has access to water and many club facilities and infrastructure including parking and meeting rooms.
“The garden would bring extra members and activity to the club.”
Councillor Suzanne Migdale tabled the petition at a council meeting earlier this month and it is now being assessed by the city’s recreation unit.
NORTHBRIDGE-based Greens senator Rachel Siewert has marked anti-poverty week by claiming the Morrison government is demonising people on the dole.
The Greens have a bill before parliament that was due to be debated on Thursday, calling for the Newstart and Youth Allowance to be raised by $75 a week.
It follows research by Deloitte Access Economics earlier this year for the Australian Council of Social Services that showed raising the dole could help kickstart local economies.
Sen Siewert says while the government talks up trying to fix mental health and conquering poverty, its policies were punishing people and pushing them further down the economic ladder.
“We cannot be looking at poverty, mental health and our community’s wellbeing without looking at how we provide services and supports and our social policy,” Sen Siewert says.
Demonise
“The Coalition has an agenda and it is to stigmatise and demonise people accessing our social safety net.”
The Greens have an unlikely ally in their push; former Liberal prime minister John Howard, who recently argued that a 24-year freeze on raising Newstart has probably run its race.
However, prime minister Scott Morrison refused to entertain an increase when developing the last budget, saying despite better economic figures, Australia was still in deficit and not in a position to help the unemployed with a pay rise.
The dole was not a wage, he said, but a payment to tide you over on the way to a new job.
THE beloved Kyilla Community Farmer’s Market has been given the green light to operate for another five years.
Noting the success of the markets, Vincent councillors unanimously approved another five-year permit and voted to waive the $56,160 reserve hire fee at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
The market, run by Kyilla primary school and the pre-primary P&Cs, attracts about 500 people a week and up to 2000 when they have special events.
Funds raised from stall fees are used to buy educational resources for the school.
Vincent councillor Dan Loden, who moved the motion to renew the permit, said: “The Kyilla market is a great asset in our community and something we should be supporting.”
Vincent mayor Emma Cole told the meeting “the Kyilla Farmers Market is a great success story in the city of Vincent. We’ve seen farmers markets come and go, and this has got the exact right ingredients for success,” being community-driven and attracting people back.
Councillor Joanne Fotakis noted the bacon and egg wraps were one of the many “valuable additions” the markets had made to the community.
It runs every Saturday 8am to 11.30am at Kyilla Park, if you want to try those wraps.
STIRLING council should collaborate more with the Beaufort Street Network, says Mt Lawley MP Simon Millman.
The BSN, a grass-roots collection of businesses and residents dedicated to improving the area, re-launched on Friday night and more than 100 people piled into Harvey Leigh’s in Highgate to share their ideas for the future of the street.
Mr Millman wants Stirling council to help the BSN extend its good work north of Walcott Street – the invisible divide between Vincent council in the south and Stirling in the north.
Berlin wall
Former Mt Lawley MP Michael Sutherland called the divide Perth’s “Berlin Wall”, and it’s led to some strange juxtapositions like the white-and-blue art deco bollards and streetlights on the Stirling side clashing with the south’s burgundy theme.
On October 31 Stirling council is hosting a Beaufort Streetscape visioning workshop, but the BSN hadn’t even been invited, and didn’t know about it until the Voice told them.
[Update: Stirling council has since provided us with a copy of a snail mail letter dated October 9 addressed to the Network’s PO box inviting them to the workshop: see letter below]
In past years the BSN have had a few smaller projects with Stirling council chipping in, but Mr Millman says it’s time for more consistent support.
“The Beaufort Street Network has a proven track record in delivering events that excite and engage our community,” he says.
“It would be great if the City of Stirling could provide an ongoing commitment to come to the party and back the network to extend its reach north of Walcott Street. Let’s give our community the best chance to benefit from cohesive, vibrant activities that bridge local government boundaries.”
BSN chair Joshua O’Keefe said they’d love to get more involved further north: “It doesn’t matter if you go up to Cantina or down to the Queens, it’s the same place,” he says.
Mr O’Keefe says one of the network’s objectives “is to really get the City of Stirling and those businesses on board with what we’re doing. We want to grow the whole of Beaufort Street. If you walk from the north to the south, it’s all one big space”.
The BSN is the original town team and has inspired many others including the Baysie Rollers and Vic Park Collective.
The Network is often funded by Vincent council, the major contributor to the street festival, which this year gave $45,000 to various events.
VINCENT council is going ahead with its 40kmh speed limit trial on suburban streets in the southern ward below Vincent Street (see last week’s story “Sixty want 40” at http://www.perthvoiceinteractive.com).
Councillors voted it in after 60 per cent of people who were surveyed said they supported a 40kmh limit.
Mayor Emma Cole told Tuesday night’s council meeting 60 per cent was significant support: “The UK has decided to exit the European Union with a smaller number,” she said.
The state government’s Road Safety Commission has come on board, studying the trial closely along with Monash Uni’s Accident Research Centre.
Councillors Dan Loden and Jonathan Hallett said they’d be keen to try a 30kmh limit in the future, but were happy to go with 40 for now.
Doggie lovers at Dogtober. Photo by Suburban Exposure
THE newly re-launched Beaufort Street Network 2.0’s first event was a hit with hundreds turning out for “Dogtober” on Sunday October 14.
The rain didn’t stop people bringing their pooches along to the Mary Street Piazza for the popular dog show, MCd by Perth MP John Carey, who had organised the first bow-wow show at one of the early Beaufort Street festivals.
BSN chair Joshua O’Keefe said they were “really pleased with our first event for the new Network. After some pretty nerve racking hours in the morning, the turnout for the dog show showed that our little community still loves dogs and still loves community events.”
The Network has a few ideas in store for future events, with a twilight Christmas market planned for this year.
TAFE’S Gallery Central in Aberdeen Street will be transformed into a shrine this week, with a chant master from the Phen Dhe Ling Tibetan Buddhist Association holding morning meditations while creating a sacred sand mandala.
The mandalas are created from memory and the designs are reputedly 2500 years old; but emphasising the impermanence of life, at the end of the project they’ll be swept up and thrown into the river.
This week’s will celebrate female aspect of Buddha. Alongside their mandala, visiting Indian monk Thupten Jigme and Perth-based Thupten Lodey will be chanting using the distinctive Buddhist harmonic singing.
MANNA INC will continue feeding people for free in Weld Square for at least another year.
In 2008 Vincent council let the benevolent food van go there to feed people doing it tough, “until permanent premises was secured”.
But Manna wasn’t able to find a home and 10 years later they’re still at Weld Square, Monday to Friday, serving about 150 cooked meals a day.
Some nearby business owners and residents have complained about Manna, saying the food van attracted undesirable types and that a lot of trash was left in the park.
Manna’s tried to ameliorate those worries, working with Nyoongar Outreach Services to “better manage any incidents”.
The police now have more of a presence at the square and the council’s asked Manna volunteers to be more vigilant about picking up trash.
Not all of the rubbish dropped is Manna’s—some grots let their McDonalds wrappers blow around the park too.
Vincent council has given Manna one-year extensions since 2013, and they’ve now been approved to operate until November 30 2019.
The council waived the normal reserve hire fee of $7,065.
Vincent mayor Emma Cole said “we really strongly support the service and see the need for it to continue”.
The council’s report notes that other nearby parks also have antisocial behaviour and they think Weld Square would have similar levels, even if Manna moved.
The organisation has been handing out free meals for 22 years.
HIGHGATE’S Andrew Nicholls has won the Perth Centre for Photography’s 2018 IRIS Award.
He snagged $3000 in prize money for Jacob and the Angel – “a self-portrait, depicting myself wrestling with my muse, close friend and fellow artist David Charles Collins at The Pinnacles desert, one of regional WA’s most haunting landscapes. We wear high-visibility workwear, the ubiquitous dress of mining industry workers.
“Though generally depicted in bright sunshine, the surreal Pinnacles landscape is captured here during a breaking storm, with brooding cloud formations and raindrops visible on our clothing.
“The work aims to critique an industry and culture I perceive as highly aggressive, while ‘camping’ upon traditional understandings of the muse; though Collins is in a more dominant position, he has my first name embroidered on his shirt, confusing our identities, and questioning who is in the more dominant role.”
After a series of residencies in Italy, Nicholls is currently working towards a solo exhibition Hyperkulturemiathe.
It’s due to open at the WA Art Gallery on December 15.
The 32 IRIS finalists remain on show at the King Street Arts Centre, 357 Murray Street Perth, until November 3.
Opening hours are Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 3pm.
Perth Voice Interactive 