Local news for local people
Welcome to the Oberon Matters web site
No 123 - August 6, 2026
A road to a mystery picnic place.
National Science Week is coming to the Malachi Gilmore Hall
on August 15. See more about the event here
 | Well, would you look at this Congratulations to the finalists in the Outstanding Community Organisation category of the 2026 Oberon Local Business Awards.
Wishing them all "Good luck" would obviously be a step too far. |
It's here! It's finally here! After more inexplicable delays than anyone could have imagined, the Oberon Leagues Club has finally moved to its new home at the new Sports Complex. It even has a new name - Club Oberon. There's still a lot of work to be done and electricians from HV Electrical are dragging wires all over the place, the NBN people are scratching their heads about internet access, there's no signal to the TV screens and the member sign in system is waiting on the NBN, but Vanessa Booth has got the important parts working. Oberon Matters can confirm that the beer is flowing and very nice it is too. The bistro is still a couple of weeks away from opening but it will be worth it when it arives. Vanessa must be congratulated on the work she and others have done to get this far. Now all we need is for the football fields to be playable, but the season is almost over and there's time to get that right before the 2027 season. Keep up with what's happening at the club at their Facebook page. |  |
 | Your Federal Member's Community Update Your community update from the Federal Member for Calare, Andrew Gee MP, can be seen here. |
Photos of children on the Internet It's a tragedy of our times that anything can be abused by perverts. The latest is that AI systems are being used to exploit photos of children by removing clothing or putting other heads on bodies. The world's largest pornography site, PornHub, recently banned one of their advertisers who was paying a million dollars a year to advertise AI-generated child porn. That company is Australian. Elon Musk is threatening to sue a US state because it has banned Musk's Grok AI for the ease with which it can be used to produce images of naked children. Musk claims this is an infringement of free speech, a statement that renders sane people speechless. Legitimate search engines are blocked from indexing any images on this site but it is almost impossible to prevent web site content from being scavenged by AI robots and the only alternative is to not publish photos, so over the next few weeks I will be going through all the sports and school reports on the site and removing any photo in which kids can be identified. (This tiny and obscure site is continually trawled by AI bots, although all except ChatGPT try to remain anonymous. The papers published by Nine Entertainment are currently being hit 30,000,000 times a month by AI content thieves. It is work for several people just to try to keep up with the blocking.) The two articles below from The Conversation address the danger of putting your kids' photos online. |  |
 | A raffle for a very good cause There's anther raffle running in Oberon. Rotary are raffling a trailer, but not just any old trailer - it's one you design yourself up to a value of $7,000 and will come with $5,000 worth of things inside it. So if you want something to tow a car or boat, haul wood or farm supplies or cause your relatives to ask for help moving house you will get what you want. Tickets are $100 each, with only 1,000 being sold so get in quick for this opportunity. Look for the ticket sellers outside the Council building each Saturday morning. The money raised will be used in the campaign to reduce the level of domestic violence in the community. Despite the nonsense talked by a certain politician it is a serious problem, with 29 deaths so far in 2026 in NSW alone. And that's deaths, not nonfatal assaults. (See the stats here.) Whatever the number of assaults, it's too high if it's over zero. This is a very worthy cause indeed and is typical of Rotary's work in the community. See what they are up to at their Facebook page. |
Whole lotta learning going on In the chilly hours and minutes of an Oberon day, the schools keep on filling students' heads with facts and stories. |  |
 | The sporting life The chilly weather didn't keep the sportspeople of Oberon at home in front of the fire. They were out there chasing results |
Visitor statistics
August 6, 2026
Here is what has happened around this site over the last three months
| Month | Unique visitors | Most read page in the month |
| May | 10,231 | Review: "AI Snake Oil" by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor |
| June | 15,656 | Some good news for a change (2024!). This hit the top spot in the last two days of the month, edging out This week's Moron Alert which had been at the top since the day it was published. Strange days indeed. |
| July | 14,531 | New owners for Oberon's taxi |
The number of unique visitors during July reported by the server log analysis software was 20,633. This was adjusted downwards by the 2,707 attempts to access the Wordpress administrator login page. (Just as well I don't use Wordpress, isn't it?) It was also adjusted for the totally unbelievable 3,395 hits on First Edith Seasonal Markets for 2026. The numbers do not include the 4,552 attempts by anonymous "search" engines to access the site. This might be a small and obscure web site in the scheme of things but it is still under constant attack by AI parasites trying to steal the content. Only ChatGPT identifies itself (twelfth most common crawler during the month) but it is a full-time job to track the rest and block them (if they can even be identified).
The short version (or TL;DR in net.speak) is that a lot of people visit the site each month but the figures are inflated slightly by visitors who are not welcome.
"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. Put another way, it is the lowest estimate of the number of visits to the site during the month.
The Burraga Sheep Show is happening on August 29.
It is not to be missed.
Science comes to Oberon Are you interested in science? If not, you should be. National Science Week runs from August 15 to 23 and this year part of it is happening in Oberon. The Oberon Citizen Science Network will be celebrating at the Malachi Gilmore Hall on Saturday, August 15. |  |
Another week. Another scam. The creativity (or perhaps dishonesty) of scammers is remarkable. They never tire of finding new ways to steal money from unsuspecting targets. Here's a statement from the Oberon Men's Shed about one going around town right now. The Shed has received an enquiry stating that a "Jeff" from the Men's Shed had done some odd jobs at a home for a lady in town. She had overpaid him and was requesting the return of the overpayment. The Oberon Men's Shed doesn't perform odd jobs for members of the community as our insurance doesn't cover this type of work. Nor do we intrude on the type of work local handymen undertake. Additionally, the Shed has never had a member called "Jeff." Please be aware that if "Jeff" or anyone else approaches you claiming to be from the Men's Shed looking to do handyman's work around your home, we reiterate that we don't perform this sort of work for the community as we don't have the required insurance. |
 | July 2026 Oberon Council Meeting May Oberon Council Ordinary and Extraordinary meetings. |
Community Services Expo The 2026 Community Services Expo will be held at the Oberon Community Centre from 4 to 6pm on Thursday, August 6. The expo highlights the services that make the town such a nice place to live. Oberon Matters will be there with a stand, so drop by for a chat. |  |
 | Book review: "Surrounded by Idiots" by Thomas Erikson The subtitle of this book is "The four types of human behaviour and how top effectively communicate with each in business (and in life)". A very bold claim, and based on its own idiocy that people can be partitioned into fixed and inflexible categories. |
Oberon Council Mayor's Column This fortnight's column from Oberon Mayor Andrew McKibbin can be seen here. |  |
 | Men's Shed Raffle If you ever walk past IGA on a Friday you can't miss the representatives of the Oberon Men's Shed selling raffle tickets. The purpose is to raise money to build a permanent home for the Shed rather than the cramped quarters they now occupy at the showground. The Oberon Matters office is in a small flat and the landlord is not at all enthusiastic about heating the place with a wood fire in a fire pit in the middle of the lounge room so when these are the prizes there is extra "encouragement" from the Shed people to buy tickets which are treated as a donation. When the prizes are groceries and petrol vouchers there is more buyer enthusiasm because, you know, food and driving. Whatever the prizes, however, the money from the tickets goes to a good cause. The Shed's latest raffle has closed, and winners drawn.
Megan from Hair Flair Hairdressers was the barrel girl this time around. Congratulations to all winners and sincere thanks to all who purchased tickets. A new raffle has started. You'll find the volunteers in the main street again every Friday. |
I like schoolin' and I'm not foolin' The educating (and sporting) keeps going on at the schools around Oberon. |  |
 | The sporting continues All the sports. All the time. |
$10 for trips anywhere in Oberon during August.
Ring
to book your ride.
Community Event: Suicide Prevention, Depression and Anxiety Suicide is a very worrying thing, and Oberon Men's Shed in conjunction with the Australian Men's Shed Association and the charity Talk to Me, Bro will be hosting a community meeting in November to consider and reflect on the issue. |  |
 | New owners for Oberon's taxi When Ashdeep Nash brought a taxi service to Oberon last year it was very welcome. Ashdeep is moving interstate and NSW laws require that taxi owners live in this state so there was a possibility that Oberon would lose this valuable resource. But the taxi has new owners and will be staying in town. |
Thanks for the donations
July 23, 2026 in Community
The Oberon Garden club have announced two donations to local recipients. $10,000 goes to the Oberon Hospital Auxiliary and $1,000 to Oberon Museum. The money was raised from entry fees at the Club's Autumn Open Garden Festival.
Thanks and congratulations.
Time catches up with St Dymphna's Church in Burraga Not just time but a reducing population and smaller congregations have led to the closure of St Dymphna's Catholic church in Burraga. Unfortunately this sort of thing seems inevitable for small towns and villages where the cost of upkeep means that some things just can't be justified any more. The final Mass was conducted on Saturday, July 18, by Bishop Michael McKenna. |  |
There are a lot of cattle around Oberon
July 23, 2026 in General News
Thanks to Scott Hilburn at the Argyle Sweater
| Oberon Council Mayor's Column This fortnight's column from Oberon Mayor Andrew McKibbin can be seen here. |
School Daze Schools were still closed for the holidays last week, but a book review I wrote reminded me of this article I wrote some time ago for Australasian Science magazine about a perennial and dangerous teaching practice which keeps arriving uninvited into schools. |  |
 | School life gradually returns It's a slow start to the term but there are things going on behind the curtain. |
Chasing things around paddocks Nothing but winners this week, in soccer, league and golf. |  |
 | Two good to be true? It has just been announced that the NSW Rally Championship will be returning to Oberon in November, based at the Sports Complex and using Hampton and Jenolan forests. As the Australian Motor Sport Action Group (AMSAG) have a round of their series scheduled for Black Springs two weeks earlier we are facing a likely plethora of forest action. The two series attract different fields of competitors so all we have to do is hope that neither event is cancelled because of weather or some other manifestation of force majeur. |
Helping people cope with mental health issues.
See What's On for dates or contact Lincoln on
.
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 August 05, 2026
