If you wish to put the event up for longer, or to upload a photo to accompany it, there is a small charge, although your ad will stay at the top of the list.

The technology is simple to use! Go to the Classifieds now. Castlemaine Independent is viewed by 1500 readers a day.

The tour will showcase four sustainable homes, all with passive solar design and incorporating a diversity of styles and building materials.

This shire is well-regarded for its leadership, community passion and creativity in the area of sustainability.

For anyone thinking of building or renovating this tour is a must!  On this tour you will have an opportunity to talk to the home owners and designers in this in depth tour of four unique sustainable homes in Castlemaine.

Local designers Lifehouse will also talk about their recent Building Design Association of Victoria award winning ten-star house design.

This event costs $30 for individuals, $20 for low income and MASG members or $50 for couples and  includes the house tours and  written information about the houses.

For information and bookings visit www.masg.org.au/housetours or call MASG on 0448 327 791.

At the last CI staff meeting

It’s CI’s birthday! Two.

How would you live without us? Let us know! Congratulate us.

Conditions of congratulating us:

1. No hate bloggers

2. No nasty comments about those pro or anti the swimming pool

3. No free trips to the Maryborough Highland Society club in Maryborough to play pokies

4. No calling the editor so deluded it is almost funny/a leftist agitator who does a pretty poor impersonation of a journo/asking him just WHO he is and WHAT planet he is from/that he uses weary old tools of the leftist and points the Nazi finger of shame/saying he has a juvenile and sarcastic manner/an idiot

5. No saying the editor’s sophistry is breathtaking. Sophistication – yes, sophistry – no.

6. No saying Far from being independent and un-biased, the author still favours left/green articles and continues to take swipes at Howard, Bush and other captains of capitalism.

7. No saying CI will suit local self-styled artists and pseudo intelligentsia. Some discretion should be used if allowing minors to visit it as offensive language is contained in some articles.

8. No calling CI a litany of self indulgent shite/not only inflamatory but also pathetic/truly awful, biased and disenfranchised piece of garbage/grubby little ploy … nothing short of disgusting

9. NO THREATENING US in capital letters. No threatening us in little letters. Neither law suits nor fish in the letter box.

10. No threats to inter CI staff at the Olde Gaol (at least if you’re planning it, MAKE IT A SURPRISE)

11. Take out a paid ad with us!

12. Contribute!

Lauded for his musical creations at Paris and Tokyo fashion weeks, Benjamin has most recently performed in Italy and Russia. Formerly artist in residence at the Tokyo French Embassy, his sound art creations have been exhibited in tandem with Yoko Ono. He was the featured performer at the inauguration of the Museum of 20th Century Art Museo 900 at the Duomo in Milan and was recently interviewed for Vogue Japan.

Skepper will perform solo on harpsichord, cello, sound objects and electronics to showcase original contemporary compositions from his trio of self produced albums.
His Japanese team will also fly direct from Tokyo to engineer Skepper’s trademark sound.

Following Theatre Royal, the artist will travel directly to Italy, where he will perform and play the Casanova at the famous Venice Carnivale.

Embodying classical aesthetic, music and culture, Benjamin Skepper is a musician with an extraordinary sense of the contemporary.”
(Rolling Stone Magazine – Italy 2011) 

“firebrand cellist Benjamin Skepper is one of the most exciting figures in the world of [contemporary] classical music at the moment”
(Beat Magazine – Australia 2011)

Dates: Saturday 4 February 7.30pm
Tickets: $35 Pre-Booked $40 at door

Supported by: contrapuntal, HIRANYA ACCESS, Taguchi, Whitelights and Rachel Skepper Millinery.

Helen Davey

When the Helen Davey Trio plays, it’s not unusual to see twelve or more instruments on stage, and, of course, just three musicians. Says Helen, “We’re all passionate about sound and like experimenting with unusual sound combinations. ” Like what? “Oh, for example piano and gong, or mandolin and udu.” Does that make it difficult to categorize their music? “Well yes,” concedes Helen. “We came up with the description ‘poetic world folk with a contemporary twist‘, but there are hints of jazz and blues in there too.”

Helen started playing piano and singing her own songs at an early age and first improvised sound scapes publically for a silent film aged nine. Various instruments have lured her since, accordion in more recent years, by necessity.  “A Swiss folk musician contacted me when she was looking for a vocalist and keyboard player to tour with her band. She asked me to write some songs for her programme too. I was pretty chuffed and was preparing for the big day. Then one week before my audition, she phoned to tell me I had to play accordion too. So I had to learn the squeezebox fast.“

Aside from being an accomplished singer-songwriter, Helen has worked as a playwright, composer and arranger for children’s musical productions, and as a musician for improvised theatre and film. “Cross-arts projects are my passion,” she explains. “I love creating music in response to other art forms.” Helen calls this sound-painting. “These are unique interactive improvisations performed in response to something volunteered by the audience”, explains Helen. “Sometimes it’s a story, other times an audience member chooses a piece of art in the room and I’ll sound-paint to that.

I’m really interested in how we relate to others’ experiences and I find that sound-paintings are a great vehicle for tapping into that shared space.  I love the connectedness between strangers that happens in the room at that moment.”

Soon after her move to Switzerland in 2005 Helen began working with David Aebli (double bass, bouzouki, guitar, mandolin). David has been a soloist and accompanist in various outfits playing Sounds of Greece, Irish Folk and Gypsy music. He loves to mix up folk music with a little bit of jazz. Significantly, his love of music extends to hand-crafting most of the instruments he plays.

The duo was joined in 2010 by percussionist Ferdi Rauber (hand drums, didjeridoo, overtone singing). Helen says, “I was looking for a percussionist who would play without sticks, because I wanted subtle textures to be the hallmark of the arrangements for my songs. Ferdi rose to the challenge. He’s a master of nuance.” Taking much of his inspiration from nature, Ferdi has created numerous instruments from stone, wood and metal. He is renowned for his permanent outdoor sound installations at the “Klangweg“ in North-Eastern Switzerland.

The Helen Davey Trio will be touring Victoria in early February. Although the sound-paintings are an integral feature of the trio’s live shows, the main purpose of the tour is to showcase Helen’s newly released collection of original songs on her “Carvings” CD. The album explores the theme of life leaving its tracings on us, linking us with others. Carvings was recorded by the trio in the European Summer of 2011. The CD has been described as “Music to re-enchant your senses”.

Maurocco Bar, Castlemaine – Saturday 11 February, 5pm, $15/$12. Tel 03 5472 1085

Ten uses for the Olde Castlemaine Gaol?

It remains an eyesore at the top of the hill. In an idle moment we thought up ten new fun uses for the Olde Castlemaine Gaol. Your suggestions welcome.

1. Turn it into the pokies venue. Thieves, convicts, cut throats, whores, misery, pimps and murderers. No real change of original purpose.

2. Turn it into a biodynamic vegetable garden (all those hanged convicts would be good for mulch. Blood and bone, etc).

3. Take off the roof, remove valuable wiring or copper piping, and let it revert to a gracious ruin. No more good money after bad. Let them sell chutney and jam and start employment schemes at the olde Beechworth Gaol.

4. Tear it down and put Coles there. Run perpetual specials on blood and bone fertiliser and Rum, Sodomy and the Lash by the Pogues.

5. Put Jim Squires, Lyn Vickery, Brook Acklom and other hate bloggers there.

6. Make it a rest home for highly paid, ill-informed out-of-town (Sydney) consultants. They were allegedly paid $80,000 to produce a report on uses for the Olde Gaol, a report that now lies gathering dust in the bowels of Council.

7. Dynamite it for fun!

8. Make it a nature reserve and breed bilbies.

9. Make it a paint ball venue.

10. Install the new swimming pool. You could even have little water windows into the ground underneath where you could look at the skeletons of the convicts hanged there and buried while you’re swimming laps or playing Marco Polo.

What you shouldn’t do:

Take scenic tours through it.

Sell chutney and jam there (unless it’s Lash Chutney and Sodomy Jam).

Offer B&B in the former cells. (Ugh, all that sweat and misery in the walls).

Bring Martin Ferguson there to hand out government money. Pour government money into signage and then close it.

Lease it out to companies that manage state and federal government programs with annual turnovers in the multi millions and hundreds of staff. (Take the money and run.)

Make table tops in the cafe with the names of all the hanged convicts and their crimes printed on them. Might put visitors off their lattes.

Pour money into revitalising the Governor’s residence. What for? Wasn’t the governor a bastard?

This will take the form of four one-act plays to be performed in June this year. We invite you to make a proposal to direct a one-act play for us. You may be an experienced director or a first timer. The only qualification is that you have not directed for the CTC before. Your proposal should include a one-paragraph bio detailing your relevant experience, a short synopsis of the play you would like to propose, a statement of vision or intension, and of course your contact details. Proposals should not exceed two sides of A4. If you would like to direct a play, but don’t have one in mind, apply anyway and we will help you select one. Preference will be given to proposals with simple staging requirements. Closing date for proposals: Monday 13 February.

That Time Again – AGM 2012

Yes it’s time once again to announce the Castlemaine Theatre Company’s Annual General Meeting. The meeting will be held at 7pm on Thursday 8 March in the Ray Bradfield Rooms, Victory Park, Castlemaine. Anyone who is a financial member of the CTC is welcome to attend the meeting. You can join up at the meeting if you like.

We currently have eight committee members, so that means that there are three places available for new committee members. We would love to have more hands as we are embarking on a very exciting program of new initiatives at the moment and need help in lots of areas. We particularly need people interested in set design and construction, and anyone keen to help out with publicity, we love anyone with good ideas and the time and energy to implement them.

If you would like to be on the committee you can nominate to be a regular committee member, or you can nominate for a position (secretary, vice president, president, treasurer). At the meeting all positions are declared vacant and we vote for committee members. Nominations can (preferably) be made prior to meeting, or at the meeting before it commences.

Once the meeting commences, no nominations can be accepted from the floor, unless there are no nominations for that position. If you are not a financial member you cannot nominate once the meeting has started.

If you would like to nominate prior to the meeting please contact the Secretary, Kate Stones on 0431 998 707 or katestonesdattner@gmail.com

Sunshine Coast songwriter Ange Takats

It’s not every day that you find yourself surrounded by gun-wielding soldiers with your undies around your ankles during a drug bust in the hills of northern Thailand … but that’s exactly what happened when Sunshine Coast songwriter Ange Takats took up a job as a foreign correspondent in Bangkok.

The Queensland musician has written a memoir about her South-east Asian adventures and will be bringing the book, as well as her songs and stories, to regional Victoria when she performs at the Newstead Live Music Festival over the Australia Day weekend.

“I covered some bizarre stories during my two years in Thailand. One of my first assignments was to report on a funeral for a water buffalo. I arrived with my cameraman to see this big dead beast hanging inside a shed, with fairy lights wrapped around his horns, and flowers stuffed into his ears,” Ange said.

“Then there was the Thai boob job story. We’d gone to film a woman who claimed to be able to make breasts bigger by rubbing them with Tiger Balm. Half way through the shoot she decided she wanted to give me a freebie.”

The book is a leap of faith for the songwriter, who wrote most of the chapters in between her busy touring schedule. Ange first performed at Newstead in 2010 and she’s looking forward to returning, this time with her novel.

“I love writing lyrics but there’s only so much you can say in a four minute song. This book has been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – a way of paying tribute to the cameramen, musicians and beautiful souls who shared life with me during my two years in Thailand,” she said.

Ange was 22 when she left the comfort of life in Sydney to work in the cut-throat, male-dominated, international media. From heroin addicts in Hanoi, to AIDS patients in Bangkok – the stories Ange covered overseas had a huge impact on her.

“I was one of the few foreign journalists granted access to Burmese Democracy Leader Aung San Suu Kyi when she was released from house arrest in 2002. It was a monumental day – one of the most intense and stressful breaking news stories that I’ve covered,” Ange said.

Since releasing her debut album, Aniseed Tea, in 2009 – Ange has spent the past two years performing at some of the country’s biggest music festivals and building a steady following of fans.

“There’s a strong link between Thailand and my career as a musician because it was in Bangkok that I got offered my first paid gig. Many of the songs on Aniseed Tea were inspired by that time and I suppose this book is my way of sharing the stories behind those songs,” Ange said.

At the end of its last Council meeting for 2011, our Councillors quietly voted to stop rubbish collection in the Shire … (while you pick yourself up off the floor, I’ll finish the sentence) … for all businesses.  No, it isn’t for your household rubbish that they have done this, but please consider all of those who try to make your towns be viable business centres.  Suddenly shopkeepers can’t put their rubbish out!  One could easily argue that rubbish collection was the only thing the Shire had ever done for business.

I have never before heard of a Shire Council abandoning this one most basic of its services to its ratepayers.  Our Shire has done this with no warning, no consultation, and no investigation.  As far as we know, no other Shire in the Victoria has made a similar decision.

Amazingly, they have already signed contracts for Shire rubbish pick-up that doesn’t include any business.  They have given the reason that the EPA now requires that they separately report domestic collection from Commercial/Industrial collection and the latter is no longer cost effective.  When was rubbish collection or footpath cementing ever cost effective?!  They are basic services which make up one of the reasons that Councils exist!

Our Council has just made a wild guess that either no business in the Shire has any rubbish or they are already getting it picked up privately.  Imagine all those little shops who put out their small bag of rubbish once a week, plus a couple of boxes on recycling day.  Certainly they couldn’t justify or afford a commercial pickup from Bendigo.

Are they allowed to put it all in the street bins, or better yet, on the steps of the Council building?  Will it all end up on forest tracks, or increasing our landfill when it is no longer separated?  Will tip hours be increased when all the shopkeepers have to drive there before work?   I certainly hope that this crazy decision can be reversed.

Yours faithfully,

Joyce Sanders

Barker St., Castlemaine

Only a little angst ... he's in the Labor Party, after all. (From an image by John Heartfield)

Education Facilitator, Kate Stones will be running Kids and Carers, a lovely series of workshops for younger kids and their carer (a parent, grandparent, or auntie). The workshops support kids and carers to learn and explore together, and discover some of the wonderful paintings and sculpture at Castlemaine Art Gallery.

Kate will also run a workshop for older kids, taking them back in time to 1852, finding out about the different people who were on the Goldfields (it’s not just diggers!) and writing an imaginary journal entry.

Lisa D’Onofrio, the Director of the Castlemaine Children’s Literature Festival will be joining us to run a workshop called Put Yourself in the Picture! Participants will explore works using rhyme, words and drawings, and imagine themselves in the world of the painting….

We will also see the return of the fabulous Punch Professor, Mr Ken Harper. This year Ken will be putting on two performances of the traditional Punch and Judy Show.  With its origins in the sixteenth century Italian style of comedy, Commedia dell’Arte, this 40-minute show is sure to delight.

There are some slightly scary bits, not so good for tiny ones, but great fun for ages six and up, including the grown-ups. Ken will begin his season at the gallery with a wonderful workshop called Puppets of the World – an introduction to puppets from all over the world; including Indonesian, Balinese, Chinese, Indian, Japanese and the traditional English glove-style puppets.

The show includes a demonstration and opportunity for participants to have a go with the puppets. The Castlemaine Art Gallery Kids’ Summer Program will run from January 16-31 2012. Full details and booking information from the Gallery Front Desk, 14 Lyttleton St, ph 5472 2292 or at the website.

A Mayan priest taking part in a ceremony. Photo: AP

THE last New Year’s Day in human history has come.

You may not believe it, but millions do. They are convinced that ancient Maya priests calculated December 21, 2012, as the end of the world. The only problem is, the ancient Maya predicted no such thing.

In its heyday, circa AD250 to 900, the Mayan civilisation produced a dazzling legacy of literature and learning, art and architecture. But they weren’t preoccupied with apocalypse.

Read more

You can choose a paid option to put your ad up for longer, or to load some images.

“The concept design is for a contemporary, multi-purpose facility that will enable our community to participate in a wide range of recreational activities,” Council says.

Being indoor, the Centre will be able to be used all year round. Important design features such as tilt up doors and outdoor water play area will ensure that you can also enjoy an outdoors experience while at the Centre. The open air theme extends to the cafe with an alfresco eating area and the crèche with a secure and shaded outdoor play space.

Council contends that the design is sympathetic to the site, with materials providing a “soft, translucent finish”. The building will be located on the southern end of the Western.

For the environmentalists among us, the design, Council says, will meet Council’s environmental sustainability objectives to limit greenhouse emissions and contain energy costs. They propose to include co-generation and e-water systems cleaning, and for energy usage to be minimised through a heat exchanger for pool hall ventilation and sub-metering technology to control and modify energy consumption throughout the centre.

The total cost of building at the Western is expected to be $15.2 million. Council says 10-year financial modelling based on similar centres in regional Victoria indicates the Centre is likely to generate revenue of $1.405 million per year. Operating costs have been estimated at $1.681 million per year, leaving an annual operating cost to Council of $276,000, which will reduce substantially when they close the existing Castlemaine pool.

You can find out more through an online presentation and fact sheets covering topics such as design, cost, environmental impact, parking and answers to frequently asked questions on Council’s website  in the Major Projects section.  This section of the website also includes an online presentation of the design with opportunity to provide feedback.

Information will also be available at Council offices and other civic facilities, including the library, senior citizen centres and visitor information centres.

You are invited to attend a series of meetings in late January as follows:

Launceston Aquatic centre subject of review

Ringwood’s $48 million pool: viability still biggest question

Passionate debate over Ararat pool