	{"id":123666,"date":"2026-06-28T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/?p=123666"},"modified":"2026-06-24T20:33:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T10:33:09","slug":"cardigan-villagers-celebrated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/cardigan-villagers-celebrated\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardigan Villagers celebrated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>BEFORE she even arrived at last Friday&#8217;s morning tea in her honour, Lyn McNeight had already walked about 10kms and was looking forward to walking that much again.<\/p>\n<p>For the Cardigan Village postie, now in her 70s, walking an average of 25 to 30kms a day is just part of the job she&#8217;s done for more than 27 years.<\/p>\n<p>McNeight is affectionately known to locals as &#8220;the One Person Neighbourhood Watch&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Dignitaries including federal Ballarat MP Catherine King, state Ripon MP Martha Haylett, City of Ballarat&#8217;s Cr Samantha McIntosh, Cardigan Village Community Asset Committee chair Heather Wood and lots of locals gathered to acknowledge McNeight&#8217;s service to the satellite suburb in Ballarat&#8217;s west at the special morning tea.<\/p>\n<p>They met at Cardigan Village Community Centre to raise a cuppa to McNeight and her many years of dedication to faithfully delivering the post to addresses throughout the locality.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout, she has made friends of the residents, their cats and dogs.<\/p>\n<p>McNeight, a grandmother of two, said she has watched Cardigan Village change significantly in the more-than a quarter of a century that she&#8217;s been delivering the post there &#8211; including the increase in parcels, which she delivers by car.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_30038\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-30038\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-30038\" src=\"https:\/\/static.timesnewsgroup.com.au\/prod\/uploads\/sites\/9\/2026\/06\/CardiganVillagePosti_70170.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"398\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-30038\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">City of Ballarat&#8217;s Cr Samantha McIntosh, Ballarat MP Catherine King, Cardigan Village Community Asset Committee member Francis Litwin, postie Lyn McNeight and Ripon MP Martha Haylett at last Friday&#8217;s special morning tea at Cardigan Village Community Centre. Photo Evie Lamb.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I started off, I had 78 drops and now I have 430,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>Always keeping fit, and playing sports in the past &#8211; including softball, baseball, footy, hockey and volleyball &#8211; has served her well, McNeight said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have no plans to retire.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Another long-serving local came in for some special thanks at the morning tea too.<\/p>\n<p>Member of the Cardigan Village Community Asset Committee Francis Litwin received a framed plaque in recognition of his more-than 23 years of service to the committee, including stints as its treasurer and facilities booking officer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I would mention that we need more committee members,&#8221; said Litwin as he gracefully accepted the plaque and recognition.<\/p>\n<p>Wood invited anyone interested in joining to get in contact for a chat or simply roll up and see how it all works before joining.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BEFORE she even arrived at last Friday&#8217;s morning tea in her honour, Lyn McNeight had already walked about 10kms and was looking forward to walking that much again. For the Cardigan Village postie, now in her 70s, walking an average of 25 to 30kms a day is just part of the job she&#8217;s done for [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/cardigan-villagers-celebrated\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":244,"featured_media":123669,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-123666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cardigan Villagers celebrated - Ballarat Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Cardigan Village residents and MPs celebrated local postie Lyn McNeight for her 27 years of dedicated service to the community.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/ballarat\/news\/cardigan-villagers-celebrated\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardigan Villagers celebrated - 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