Local news for local people
Welcome to the Oberon Matters web site
No 124 - August 13, 2026
A lovely day at Oberon Common.
The Oberon taxi has new owners. $10 for trips anywhere in Oberon during August.
Ring
to book your ride.
 | Oberon Community Services Expo 2026 The annual Community Services Expo was held at the Community Centre on August 6, showcasing the wide range of services and community groups that make Oberon such a vibrant and helpful place to live. The Section 356 grants for 2026 were presented at the same event. |
Media release: Council response to OLG ruling on Cr Hayden Oberon Council have issued a statement about the ongoing situation with some controversial comments made earlier this year by Councillor Helen Hayden. |  |
 | Your Federal Member's Community Update Your community update from the Federal Member for Calare, Andrew Gee MP, can be seen here. |
Another winter driving hazard to worry about Now that winter is here, this is your annual reminder about freezing fog. This is a road hazard that rarely gets mentioned but which can be very serious (and frightening) when it happens. |  |
 | Cars and coffee continues in the cold Sunday, August 2, was a bit cold (but it is Oberon in winter) but that didn't stop the regular monthly Cars and Coffee gathering. This happens on the first Sunday of every month outside and across from Peter's Cafe. |
Local Government Week colouring competition Local Government Week in Oberon included a colouring competition, with the entries on display at the Community Services Expo. |  |
 | What did you learn today? Lots! Including caves and cranes. Another educational week (and it was Education Week) for the schools around Oberon. |
A whole world of sport Well, not really the whole world but the bit of it that matters to Oberon. The sportsfolk were at it again, winning some and just missing out in others. |  |
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. |  |
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 photos 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 July Oberon Council meeting. |
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. |
Helping people cope with mental health issues.
See What's On for dates or contact Lincoln on
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Site last updated on August 12, 2026
