Friday, 14 November 2025

Dates for Doing November-December 2025

Visit the calendar for updates

https://coalpointprogress.blogspot.com/p/calendar.html

Friday 21 November from 3pm - Coal Point Public School Reunion

Coal Point Public School, Coal point Rd

Saturday 22 November, 9am–12pm, Aussie-Made, Aussie-Owned Showcase

Toronto Community Hub, 97 The Boulevarde.

Friday 28 November at 10 am, 16 Days of Activism Launch

at Toronto Library. Beforehand, the community is invited to gather at Toronto Town Square from 9.15 am for a walk against domestic violence, leaving at 9.30 am

Monday 8 Dec CPPA Monthly Meeting

3-4:30 pm Progress Hall, 197 Skye Pt Rd, Coal Point

Wednesday 10 Dec TASNG Meeting

5-6:30 The Hub,
97 The Boulevarde, Toronto

Thurs 18 Dec,11-12:30 CPPA Lunch , Progress Hall

Volunteers, Sponsors & members lunch , RSVP

Locals Landcaring -
Every Thursday
8am-12(or part thereof)

Tools & training provided
Morning tea at 10am

20/11 Stansfield
27/11 Punti wetlands
4/12 Stansfield with Bush regen team
11/12 Punti creek reserve
18/12 Stansfield & Volunteers lunch
Summer break
15/1/26 Hampton St Link,Puntei Pk end

Crocodile Point (TASNG)
1st &3rd Wed
8:30-10am. Meet under the Fennel Bay bridge

Want to join Us?
Receive weekly emails about landcaring and what we will be doing, send a request to Ros cppalandcare@gmail.com

Thursday, 13 November 2025

Celebrate Local at the Aussie-Made, Aussie-Owned Showcase

Buying local has never been more important, and our community is leading the way. The Toronto Community Hub is hosting an Australian Made, Australian Owned Showcase, celebrating what’s crafted, created and produced right here, by Australian hands and Australian businesses.

Saturday 22 November, 9am–12pm,
Toronto Community Hub, 97 The Boulevarde.

The showcase is all about helping locals make informed choices that support home-grown talent and keep money circulating in our community. It’s a chance to discover quality goods made with care, from local artists, artisans and crafters.

There’ll be stalls selling handmade textiles, pottery, metal art, essential oils, beauty products, wooden furniture for little ones, and baked treats. Many stallholders will also be sharing details about their workshops and classes, perfect if you’ve ever wanted to try your hand at something new.

A special display of everyday pantry staples will highlight Australian owned and made brands available in our local shops, so you can see how easy it is to buy local every day.

There’s also a monster raffle, a hamper brimming with Australian-made and owned goodies, from homewares and pantry treats to unique local pieces. The raffle will be drawn in the week before Christmas.

So come along for a cuppa and morning tea, browse the exhibits, and get your Christmas shopping sorted locally. You’ll be supporting Australian makers, backing local business, and celebrating the creativity that makes our community shine.

No tickets required, just drop in!

Coal Point Public School Platinum Anniversary

Coal Point Public School will celebrate

its Platinum Anniversary on

Friday 21 November from 3pm.

All students, past and present, along with their families and community members, are invited to join an afternoon of reminiscence and fun.

There’ll be food vans, games, and commemorative bricks and school memorabilia on display.

Reconnect with old schoolmates by joining the Coal Point Public School Alumni at facebook.com/groups/coalpointalumni.

We’re also collecting historical photos or memorabilia for a digital slideshow. Please email secretary@coalpoint-pandc.org.au if you can contribute.

There are orders being taken for memorabilia, umbrellas and can coolers, order here.

The CPPS are also building a commemorative brick wall that community members may purchase a brick. Order your brick here

End-of-Year CPPA Volunteers, Members and Sponsors Lunch - Dec 18

Before the year winds down, we’re gathering to say thank you, to our Landcarers, Chronicle deliverers, members and sponsors who’ve all helped make our community a little more connected.

Join us for a friendly End-of-Year Lunch at Progress Hall, Thursday 18 December, 11am–12:30pm.

This year, the invitation is extended to all members and sponsors, a wonderful chance to catch up, see the new kitchen in action, share stories and enjoy local camaraderie.

It will be catered, with a $10 contribution towards the catering.

Join in the $5 secret santa which always provides a laugh and plenty of festive spirit.

If you’ve been meaning to join the CPPA, drop by and fill out a form while you’re there, new faces are always welcome.

Please book your spot for the lunch by Monday 15 December to help with catering numbers.

As we wrap up the year, we offer heartfelt thanks to every volunteer, neighbour and friend who’s helped nurture our bushland, brighten our hall and strengthen our community spirit. We couldn’t do it without you.

Toronto Sunrise Rotary - Supporting Safe and Healthy Communities - Local and National Action

16 Days of Activism

From 25 November to 10 December, communities around the world mark the United Nations 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence. The campaign calls for a world where every woman and child is SAFE, ALWAYS, EVERYWHERE.

In 2022-23, one Australian woman was killed every 11 days by a current or former partner. About 4.2 million adults, one in four women and one in eight men, have experienced partner violence since age 15.

Rotary Clubs across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific are responding with the campaign message:

We Say NO to Domestic and Family Violence,

We Say YES to Respectful Relationships.

The Rotary Club of Toronto Sunrise are inviting locals to take part in the 2025 16 Days of Activism events. From Monday 24 November, knitted artworks will appear in the Toronto Foreshore Park, wrapping trees in purple themes, the colour of respect and remembrance, and sharing information on how to get help. A special survivor-made piece will also be displayed in the Toronto Library.

There are many services that provide help for victims, survivors and those who want to change their behaviour. Information and support are available through Services Australia, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing, CALM, and Lake Macquarie City Council’s community-led projects.

A launch event will be held on Friday 28 November at 10 am at Toronto Library. Beforehand, the community is invited to gather at Toronto Town Square from 9.15 am for a walk against domestic violence, leaving at 9.30 am. Please wear purple to show your support for safe and respectful relationships.

In October, the Rotary Club of Toronto Sunrise raised $24 000 for Jenny’s Place, a domestic-violence support service expanding into the Westlakes area. The lively “Pig Day Out” at the Toronto Hotel featured piglet races, auctions and community fun, all contributing to this impressive result. CEO Dawn Walker thanked Rotary, sponsors, 100 Club contributors and community supporters for helping women and children rebuild their lives.

Rotary’s care extends beyond Lake Macquarie with the club doing their bit to help eliminate trachoma, a preventable eye disease still affecting remote Indigenous communities in Australia, the only developed nation where it persists. The club supports Rotary’s national End Trachoma campaign, delivering Hygiene Kits to a remote community childcare centre 350 kilometres west of Alice Springs. These kits, of hand-sown bags, and locally stocked items, support the Families as First Trainers program, which teaches hygiene and disease prevention in early childhood.

By embedding hygiene knowledge early and improving living conditions, Rotary aims to eliminate trachoma and promote lasting health equity across remote communities.

Rotary’s message is simple, through awareness, action and respect we can all help create communities that are safe, healthy and caring for everyone.

Have Your Say on Housing in Lake Macquarie

Lake Macquarie City Council is asking residents to share their thoughts on how and where future homes should be built, and your voice matters.

Two important consultations are now open. The short Housing Strategy survey (closing 30 November 2025) invites ideas on how to provide more housing choices that suit our growing and changing community.

You can take part at shape.lakemac.com.au/housingstrategy.

The Housing Diversity Development Control Plan (DCP) review (submissions close 24 November 2025) focuses on the design standards that guide new housing types, such as dual occupancies and medium-density homes.

Details are at shape.lakemac.com.au/housingdiversitydcp.

Council decisions on housing shape the future of every neighbourhood. Please take a few minutes to share your views, thoughtful local input now will help keep our area liveable, inclusive and sustainable.

Can you help...Organise social events, donate for the comfy corner, join our hall helpers roster?

Celebrating 80 Years of Progress – Our Oak Anniversary

Next year marks the Oak Anniversary of the Coal Point Progress Association, 80 years strong and still growing. Like our local she-oaks, we’ve stood strong through the years, weathering storms and change, our roots deep in community care, for our people, our bushland and our beloved Progress Hall.

To celebrate this milestone, we’re planning a few special events in the hall and are forming a small sub-committee to help make it happen. If you enjoy bringing people together, sharing stories or lending a hand, we’d love you on board.

Come along to the Volunteers Lunch on Thursday 18 December for a chat, or speak with a committee member. Let’s make our 80th, our Oak Anniversary, a year to remember, and celebrate this rare and remarkable community achievement.

Hall helpers wanted

Our freshly renovated Progress Hall is busier than ever, and we’d love a few more hands to help keep it sparkling, comfy and welcoming.

We’re creating a “comfy corner” with a couple of easy chairs, a rug and a coffee table. If you’ve got any of these items you’d like to donate, please send a photo to cppasecretary@gmail.com and we’ll be in touch.

If you can spare a little time for hall care, we’re putting together a cleaning roster to share the load. The jobs are small, the company’s good, and your help makes a big difference. Chat with one of the committee members or drop us an email if you’d like to lend a hand.

TASNG Update - October update

The Toronto Area Sustainable Neighbourhood Group (TASNG) was highly commended in the 2025 Tidy Towns, Keep Australia Beautiful, awards for its waste-avoidance campaign and advocacy.

This year they joined Clean Up Australia Day at Lions Park, where volunteers helped spruce up the area. Thanks also to the Boomerang Bags makers, many of their handmade bags have been shared with local charities through the Toronto Library hub.

Landcaring continues at Crocodile Point, under the Fennel Bay bridge, with access now much easier thanks to the new bitumen road at Lions Park. Council’s Green Team will soon lend a hand with the work there. TASNG is also keeping weeds in check at the Awaba Road garden in Toronto West.

The Pamper Care project is receiving Christmas donations at the Toronto Pub Choir on 4/12/25. Council will soon be asking businesses on The Boulevarde and the wider community for input on safety options around the wheel stops.

Learning at Landcare - Citizen Science and The Good, The Bad ,The Ugly

From the Awabakal seasonal calendar, we’re now entering Wunal, the hot time on Awabakal Country. Days are humid, nights are warm, mosquitoes are biting, and many animals are breeding and active. Afternoon storms often sweep in with lightning and heavy rain, though in some years Wunal brings dry heat and drought instead.

Australia, including Awabakal Country, moves to the rhythm of El Niño and La Niña, global climate cycles that shape whether Wunal brings rain or dryness. Climate change now adds further complexity, with hot weather sometimes arriving earlier or lasting longer. Toward the end of Wunal, as koyiwon (rain) increases, the weather begins moyiyakowa, cooling again.

This awareness of seasonal change reminds us that Country is constantly shifting and that caring for land means observing its patterns closely.

Learning through Citizen Science

In September, Landcare members learned about the iNaturalist citizen-science platform. We’ve since launched a Coal Point project, where locals can log sightings of plants and animals. These observations build a record of the area’s biodiversity and changes over time, valuable data for the community and researchers alike.

One of our most exciting finds came from a bundle of decaying weeds, a blackish blind snake (Anilios nigrescens). These fascinating, non-venomous snakes spend most of their lives underground, eating ants, termites and their larvae. With their smooth scales, small dark eyes and tapering snout, they look a bit like shiny earthworms. They “taste” the air with their tongue to follow insect trails and use their upper jaw to rake prey into their mouth.

Blind snakes are part of the intricate food web of our bushland, preyed upon by owls, feral cats and foxes. Keep an eye out, though you’ll more likely find signs of them than the snakes themselves.

The Good: Spring in Full Bloom

Coal Point has been showing off a spectacular spring. Gardens are glowing, pollinators are busy, and the bushland is full of life and colour. Our native plants have put on a dazzling display, providing food and shelter for birds, insects and small creatures.

A heartfelt thanks to everyone contributing to this beauty, our Landcare volunteers, hall users, citizen scientists and those simply caring for their patch of land. You all help keep the peninsula flourishing.

One local plant to watch for over summer is Bursaria spinosa, known variously as Whitethorn, Blackthorn, Sweet Bursaria or Christmas Bush, and by the Dharawal names geapga and kurwan. This hardy, prickly shrub provides safe nesting spots for small birds. Its mid-summer flowers are creamy and sweetly scented, attracting butterflies and many other insects. Later, they form coppery, purse-shaped seed pods, hence the Latin name Bursaria (purse) spinosa (spiny). It’s a great native for gardens, growing 3–4 metres tall in sun or light shade with moderate drainage. A light prune keeps it bushy.

You’ll see Bursaria flourishing in West Ridge and Stansfield reserves, two of many local bushland pockets lovingly tended by our volunteers.

The Bad: Spanish Moss on the Move

Another plant catching our attention is Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides), also known as Old Man’s Beard. While pretty hanging from trees, this air plant can smother and damage its hosts in humid conditions. Without roots, it grows in long, silvery chains that can block sunlight and weigh down branches until they snap.

Spanish Moss has been spotted growing wild on Coal Point. You can help track its spread by recording sightings on iNaturalist under the project Tracking Spanish Moss in Australia.

When recording, note the distance from cultivated sources, host species (if known), urban or bushland location and the number of clumps.

If you love Spanish Moss in your garden, please keep it contained. If you find it in bushland, record it, then carefully remove and bin it. Let’s stop this escapee before it shades out and smothers our native trees.

The Ugly: Bagged but Not Beautiful

Finally, a plea from the Threlkeld Reserve team. During a recent Landcare morning, volunteers found four plastic bags of dog poo dumped in the bush. These weren’t the compostable kind, just ordinary plastic, left behind.

Please, if you’re walking your dog, use the compostable green Council bags and dispose of them in the green-waste bin. Our volunteers already give their time to look after the land, let’s not detract from their joy. Most dog owners do the right thing. Be one of them.

Learning from the Land

As Wunal’s warmth builds, Coal Point continues to hum with life, birds calling, cicadas buzzing and the scent of native flowers in the air. Each season brings lessons about resilience and renewal, and Landcare is one way we learn from Country while giving back.

Whether you’re a regular Thursday morning Landcarer, a hall helper, or simply someone who takes “one weed out each walk,” your care counts. Together we keep this place healthy, for people, wildlife and the next generation learning to love the land as we do.

What’s On at Coal Point Progress Hall

There’s lots happening at your local community hall , we’d love to see you there!

Healing Moves Yoga & Therapy (with Kas)Mondays & Wednesdays 5:30–6:30pm, plus every second Saturday 9:00–10:00am.
Stay tuned for Kas’s Chakra Workshop Series beginning early next year.
Sound Bath Meditations (A Soulful Way with Kara) Every second Tuesday from 4 November (please check the calendar for any changes).
Pilates & Group Fitness (with Deb) Fridays 7:45–8:45am.

Follow our Facebook page for class links & contact details and for enquiries or to connect directly with class facilitators.
Facebook page: CoalPointProgressAssociation/

We have recently had the pleasure of hosting Mobile Cheese & Yoghurt Making Classes, run by the wonderful team at mobilecheeseclass.com.au. These workshops were a hit, and we’re hopeful they’ll be back offering more delicious learning experiences soon.

We are also very pleased to welcome back Fran Davy and her nourishing Day Retreat by the Lake, supporting mind–body connection and community wellbeing.

Looking ahead, we are thrilled to have Lake Macquarie U3A joining us at the hall next year with a selection of their engaging lifelong-learning groups. Planned sessions include a Wine Appreciation Group on Tuesdays 11:30am–1:00pm, and a Fibre & Textiles Group on Wednesdays 9:30am–12:00pm. To learn more about U3A and their wonderful range of programs, visit: https://lakemacquarie.u3anet.org.au/

Our hall is a beautiful, light-filled community space equipped with a modern kitchen, making it a welcoming venue for art and music groups, social gatherings, workshops, and special celebrations. We are always keen to see more community use, particularly for weekend events and ongoing group bookings throughout the week. Do you need a back-up wet weather venue?

For bookings and enquiries, please contact Cath Fairs, details about hall hire are here. To check current activities and availability, please visit our calendar
https://coalpointprogress.blogspot.com/p/calendar.html

We look forward to seeing you at the hall soon!

DAs In Play 15/9/25 to 8/11/25

The CPPA endeavours to provide a summary of active applications in our area as outlined in the table. Please consult LMCC’s website for a full listing