A time for co-operation and care

HELLO to all Borough of Queenscliffe residents, ratepayers and visitors.

The sun is beginning to shine a little longer as we inch towards springtime. While for now we’re back at home due to the latest lockdown restrictions, I’m confident that the good folk of Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale will continue to display the same cooperation and care that they’ve all shown over the past 18 months.

To all those eligible, I encourage you to book in for a coronavirus vaccine if you haven’t already. Every person in the borough who gets vaccinated helps to keep our community safe and will let us get back to the festivals, events and gatherings that we love. Visit coronavirus.vic.gov.au for the latest.

Now I’ve said it many times before but I’ll say it again – supporting local businesses is one of the most tangible ways you can positively impact our community while we remain at home.

Whether that’s buying a takeaway coffee, making an online order, or purchasing a gift card to use at a restaurant for when we’re allowed to visit in person once more, your contributions mean a significant amount to those locals who are doing it tough.

Construction continues around town

There’s still plenty going on in the borough with some of the major infrastructure builds taking place. At the Queenscliffe Hub on Hesse Street, the walls of the building are now going up, giving us a great idea of the scale of the project and how the Hub will be able to accommodate its multiple tenants.

The team at the Queenscliffe Historical Museum (QHM) have been putting together regular videos updating the public on construction, giving us all a peek behind the curtain at the inner workings of the site. Visit the QHM Facebook page to watch.

Further down the road, Better Boating Victoria has been hard at work upgrading the Queenscliff Boat Ramp, with the first stage of construction – a new overflow parking area and dredging works – expected to be completed in early September. Concrete kerbing works have been completed, with asphalting and fencing works to begin soon. Visit the Better Boating Victoria website for all the latest updates.

Cat curfew after dark

You might have seen a post on council’s Facebook page the other day reminding everyone of the responsibilities of cat ownership. Cats are wonderful pets and it’s important to keep them happy as well as your neighbours around you by keeping them inside from sunset to sunrise. This helps protect our native wildlife and minimises public nuisance. If you’re a cat owner, we encourage you to place bells on your animals’ collars to deter them from hunting native wildlife. There’s more information on our council website.

Sporting teams in finals

To the players, spectators and supporters of community sport: it’s been a difficult year, with stop-start seasons, gathering limits and crowd bans making it an unforgettable 12 months for us all – and not in the ways we would have liked. So I’d like to congratulate each and every one of you for the resilience you’ve shown and the dedication you’ve all put in. Small towns are often built around sporting clubs, and that’s true for us as well. Good luck to all our footballers and netballers that have qualified for finals, and I look forward to seeing you back out there on the park soon. Go Coutas.

Queenscliff Music Festival sold out

What an encouraging sign it was to see the other day when the Queenscliff Music Festival (QMF) team announced that their 2021 event is now completely sold out. It’s a brilliant show of faith and support from the local community and beyond. QMF is one of the staples of the yearly events calendar in the borough and council is pleased to continue its long association with the organising team. The borough is once again a major sponsor of this year’s event, which is scheduled for the last weekend of November at Princess Park in Queenscliff. The recently announced all-Australian line-up is headlined by big-name acts such as Archie Roach, Mark Seymour & The Undertow, John Butler, and Julia Stone.

Find out your family history from home

The Queenscliff Library is one of the staples of our community. While it’s unfortunately closed to in-person visits during the current lockdown, our good friends at Geelong Regional Libraries have been working hard to make your reading and learning experience a positive one, right from the comfort of your own home.

The latest offer is one that can’t be missed – Ancestry.com has generously made Ancestry Library Edition available to library members wherever they are! For free access, you will need to log in via the Geelong Regional Libraries website (catalogue.grlc.vic.gov.au/ancestry) with your card barcode and PIN. Perfect for professionals and hobbyists, library members can look up censuses, immigration records, family histories and more from the 7,000-plus databases available.

As always, if you have any questions or ideas you’d like to share about how we can make the borough even better, you can contact me at any time.

Kind regards,
Cr Ross Ebbels
Mayor, Borough of Queenscliffe