Local news for local people
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Welcome to the Oberon Matters web site |
No 48 December 19, 2024 |
Christmas gingerbread people. Bringing
everything around Oberon together
Christmas closure
This is final edition of Oberon Matters for 2024. The office will be closed until Monday, January 6, 2025. "Closed" means that the phone probably won't be answered and the email will probably be ignored.
The rest of January will be spent on background tasks. The archive of past stories will be reorganised and the Access database over there in the background will be modified to make life a little easier in the future. There will be some tweaks to the way that Expression Web stores its files to increase speed and reliability, and the regular backups will be adjusted accordingly. There might even be some thought applied to changing the appearance of the site, but not too much (fanciness increases the time it takes to load pages).
There's always something happening, even if it's not immediately visible.
The first edition for 2025 will be published on Thursday, February 6.
The biggest "Thank You"
December 19, 2024 in General News
The first year for
Oberon Matters is over, and it has been a success thanks to the site visitors who keep coming back. Readership has been growing and we even sold some advertising. The only disappointment was that plans for a print edition had to be put on hold because a competitor with lower costs (and an inferior product) moved into the "local news" space with something
which doesn't even approach the concept of an Oberon local paper. This might be disappointing, but that doesn't mean that
Oberon Matters won't be back in 2025, reporting on the news that matters to the local residents. Like the slogan says - "Local news for local people"
A great big "Thank You" to the visitors who supported the site through its first year. Without readers it would not be worth doing. We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and we'll be back in 2025, bigger and better than ever.
Some good news for a change After what seemed to be an interminable wait, Jenolan Caves Road at Hampton is finally open for two-way traffic. |  |
 | December 2024 Oberon Council Meeting The final meeting of Oberon Council was held on Tuesday, December 17. |
Gingerbread winners The massive display of over 300 gingerbread figures across O'Connell included a competition between schools to make a house. Schools from even a long way away entered, and the winners were announced by Member for Bathurst Paul Toole at Bunnings in Kelso on December 17. |  |
 | The end of the school year The last school report for 2024. Swimming, bowls, music, award presentations. And cooking gingerbread people. |
A day out at the Tarana Farmers' Market It was almost perfect weather for the Tarana Farmers' Market so it was an easy choice to spend the morning there and wave the camera about. |  |
 | The 18th hole for 2025 The last golf report here for the year. |
Oberon Museum - open Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday
2024 Fish River Festival Things were looking really bad with disastrous weather on the day before the Fish River Festival was to happen at the O'Connell Hotel, but everything came together on the day with excellent weather and excellent performances by all the artists. |  |
 | All the schooling that anyone could want Schools might be winding down for the year, and a lot of that is recognising the achievements made during the year. There's prize giving, concerts and even learning something new and useful like swimming. |
Getting to the other side safely It's been a long time coming (first announced in October 2022) but work has finally started on the footbridge over the Fish River at O'Connell. One day the kids from the school will be able to walk and cycle to school and get to places in O'Connell without having to hope that they survive the trip across the road bridge. |  |
 | A wonderful new place to buy things There's a brand new store in the rectory at St Thomas' Anglican Church in O'Connell and it's full of things that you will fall in love with even though you didn't know you needed them until you saw them. |
Moron Alert! You might have noticed tyre marks on some of the roads around town where people who think they can drive leave behind clear evidence that their driving skills are on par with toddlers in kiddie cars. |  |
 | Gingerbread village update With an amazing over 300 gingerbread cutouts spread out along O'Connell Road nobody could suggest that the project wasn't a success and didn't need to take place. All the local politicians (plus one aspirant) turned up at the Fish River Festival to offer congratulations. |
When your handicap is spelled "rain" Golf is not the game to play when the rain is coming down as if it's coming out of the nozzle of a fire hose. Thursday's golfers were lucky. Saturday's players stayed at home. |  |
The Oberon Military Museum is open every Wednesday and Friday from 12:30 to 4pm
and on Saturdays and public holidays from 10am to 4pm.
 | 6th Annual "Skoberon" Art Exhibition Ever since the Skoda & Tatra Museum opened in Oberon in 2019 there has been an annual art competition showing works related to the two marques. The artworks are displayed along with Skoda and Tatra memorabilia. |
Winners in the big raffle Oberon Men's Shed Inc's Cost of Living Christmas Raffle was drawn and the winners are: Craig from Sydney |  |
 | This week's Minute with Mayor McKibbin This week's column from Oberon Mayor Andrew McKibbin can be seen here.
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Oberon Show Young Woman of the Year Congratulations to all the entrants in the 2025 Oberon Show Society Young Woman of the Year - Clare Mawhood, Claudia Humphries, Paige Corby and Summer O'Connell. Claudia was announced as the winner on November 30. Be there at the show on February 8 to celebrate with her. |  |
 | Burraga Sport & Recreation Club The BS&RC held its Annual General Meeting on November 28 and the following officials were elected: Sec/Manager/Licensee: Michelle Williams. Congratulations to the new committee. |
Book review - "Seven Brief Lessons On Physics" by Carlo Rovelli This wonderfully short book (83 pages) explains many of the mysteries of the universe in language that can be understood by someone with no training in physics or mathematics. Written by an expert and there are no equations! You can read it in an afternoon, and that would be an afternoon well spent. |  |
 | When golf almost becomes water polo You might have noticed a bit of rain about Oberon over the last few days. Thursday's golfers were lucky and got home before the deluge, but players on Saturday weren't quite so lucky. And Katie Graham won the big prize. |
The roof is up at the new sports complex More signs of progress at the new sports complex, with the roof over the grandstand in place. |  |
 | Education isn't just about the Three Rs Another busy and fun filled week around the schools. Learning things, doing things, painting things, graduations, prize winning. And more. |
Visitor statistics
December 5, 2024 in General News
Here is what has happened around this site over the last three months
| Month | Unique visitors | Most read page in the month |
| September | 1469 | Meet the candidates |
| October | 1714 | Sad and sorry Sodwalls Road |
| November | 1497 | A tie: Oberon Sports Complex construction moves along Cricket comes back to O'Connell |
"Unique visitors" counts IP addresses that have connected to the site at least once during the month. It doesn't include search engines, but even if it did Google and Bing (who index the site at least once a week) would only be counted as one visitor each. It is the equivalent of "Circulation" for print media.
Stories and articles for the most recent three weeks appear on the front page.
For earlier stories
see the Site History page.
We would like to acknowledge the Wiradjuri, Gundungurra and Dharug nations as the traditional custodians of the land on which we live and work and we pay our respect to Elders past, present and future
Site last updated on January 02, 2025
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