Articles published in October 2025

Congratulations to Oberon Rotary
October 2, 2025 in Community and Entertainment

Oberon Rotary has received a District Governor's Award for Oberon's first Shakespeare Festival.

Here's a couple of paragraphs from the award announcement:
"The Rotary Club of Oberon, though small in number with just seven dedicated members, has demonstrated the true spirit of Rotary service through their remarkable community initiative - the inaugural Oberon Shakespeare Festival. This inspiring event brought culture, creativity, and community connection to life. The club coordinated with a theatre group from Sydney to run engaging workshops - one at the local aged care facility and another at the high school - ensuring all generations could share in the joy of performance and storytelling.

"The festival opened with a Friday night dinner event, drawing a full house and building anticipation. But it was Saturday that truly became the highlight. Under the light of a full moon, with fairy lights twinkling and the sounds of laughter and wonder in the air, the community was treated to a magical free performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the town common. Fairies from the local high school danced among the trees, and over 250 locals arrived with their chairs to enjoy the spectacle. A free barbecue and drinks rounded out the evening, reflecting Rotary's generous and welcoming spirit.

"This extraordinary event has already earned its place in the town's calendar, with dates set for next year (March 5-7) - testament to its success and the impact it had on the Oberon community."

It's the market's birthday
October 2, 2025 in Community

The Tarana Farmers' Market is ten years old and everyone was invited to the party.
See some pictures from the day here

The Finsbury Park Trio
October 2, 2025 in Entertainment

There's no better way to spend a perfect spring afternoon than to settle down in a pub with a schooner of BX lager to listen to some music, and this is what happened on Sunday, September 28, when The Finsbury Park Trio performed at the Tarana Hotel. The trio consists of Bob on guitar, Ross hitting the drums and Adrian blowing the electric saxophone. The group doesn't appear to have a web site or social media presence, but keep your eye out at the local venues. (There seems to be a lineup match with the Mervin Wipple Trio, so look out for them too.)

Apology - two of their songs were recorded on the day to give an indication of the different styles of music being offered, but in both the band was drowned out by audience chatter. This wasn't noticeable to human ears which picked up the musicians very well but shows why I usually use a proper recording microphone rather than my phone. I'll put the mic in the camera bag for next time.

You're likely not as immune to scams as you think - here's why
October 2, 2025 in General News

Everybody likes to think that they are too smart to be taken in by a scam, but they are wrong for a lot of reasons. We've all bought something and regretted the purchase some time later, so we are all susceptible to grabbing what looked like a good idea at the time. This article from The Conversation looks at how scams work, and more importantly why they work. John Philpot Curran (not Thomas Jefferson) warned us about the need for "eternal vigilance" and that advice is a good today as it was two centuries ago.
Read the article here

September 2025 Oberon Council Meeting
October 2, 2025 in Community
Updated October 23, 2025

Another month, another Oberon Council meeting , although a briefer one than usual.
See a report on the meeting here

It's bushfire season. Be aware.
October 2, 2025 in Community

The start of October is the start of the official bushfire season and the time to remember what to do and not to do.
Jog your memory here

Me and everyone, down by the schoolyard
October 2, 2025 in Schools

It might have been the last week of term, but the schooling went on. There's no good time to stop learning.
See what happened here

If you're not interested in sport, you should be
October 2, 2025 in Sport

Most of the seasons might be over, but there was still celebrating to be done at awards presentations. And the golfers just kept on golfing.
See some photos from the nights here

Culture comes to Oberon
October 9, 2025 in Community and Entertainment

People who live in the country often complain that it's too far to go to the big city for some fine drama and music. Two events in Oberon bring the drama and music to us.

The first is the Oberon Chamber Music Festival which runs this year from November 21-23. Most of the concerts are at the Malachi Gilmore Hall and you can find out all you need to know at the festival's web site.

The other event is the Oberon Shakespeare Festival on March 5-7, 2026, organised by Oberon Rotary. You can see the fun of the 2025 festival here.

Keep your eye on the What's On page here for more news about coming events.

Speaking of culture, here's some car culture
October 9, 2025 in Community

Sunday, October 5, saw the regular monthly Cars'n'Coffee collection of cars in Oberon Street. Oberon Matters went along to point the camera at things.
See some photos of cars here

Media release - Oberon Men's Shed
October 9, 2025 in Community

Have you ever wondered what goes on at the Showground on Tuesday mornings? Or even if you haven't? What happens is the Oberon Men's Shed and this article tells you a lot about what the Men's Shed is and what it does.
See the story of the Shed here

A bit of housekeeping good news
October 9, 2025 in General News

The search facility on the site has been fixed, sort of. It's at the bottom of every page and takes your search words and comes back with a Bing search. Bing updates the index at least once a week and usually drops by within a day of the site being updated. Try it.

Search this site with Google

Note - if you love Google and hate Bing that's your problem. Things work the other way around here. An update that allows choosing a search engine will come when there's time to do the programming.

Local news is dwindling globally. Here's how other countries are trying to fix it
October 9, 2025 in General News

It's hardly a secret that Oberon Matters is concerned about local news coverage. It's what the site exists for. In a nice case of serendipity, in a week when nothing much happened around town and scratching for something to publish was an issue, this timely article came out in The Conversation. The authors (from Deakin Universtity) have been conducting research into some solutions to the problem of disappearing news outlets and the irrelevancy of some that remain. (In the 18 months I worked for the Oberon Review, the number of papers published by what was considered to be Australia's largest publisher of regional news dropped from 140 to 66. More have gone since then, including the Oberon Review itself.)
Read the article here

Lovely weather for a walk around the course
October 9, 2025 in Sport

The weather was magnificent over the weekend but that didn't deter Oberon's golfers, who managed to escape the safety of the clubhouse and hit some balls around.
See the results here

Firefighters tell the world what they do
October 16, 2025 in Community

The firefighters at Oberon Fire Station held an open day at the Oberon Rec Ground to let everyone know what they do to keep us all safe.
See some details here

How do Triple Zero calls actually work? A telecommunications expert explains
October 16, 2025 in General News

Everybody would have had to be concerned about the recent 000 failures at Optus which prevented the customers of the network from making emergency calls. People died because nobody could call an ambulance. This article from The Conversation tells how the 000 system works.
See the article here

Note: Even if 000 is working there can still be problems. Recently I needed an ambulance and had two calls to 000 drop out after connection. The people at the Emergency Call Centre have access to the owners of all phones in Australia (including mobiles) and mobile phones can be located (the phone knows its GPS location all the time, which is how they know what weather to show you, and the carriers can identify the towers they are near). Knowing my name, my home address and that my mobile was in Oberon, the ECS contacted the local police to check on me. I was told this by the local sergeant when he saw me on my way back from the hospital. Good to know.

Walking for life
October 16, 2025 in Community

Walking is good exercise. Nobody disputes that. What is needed, however, is some inducement to have a regular program of walking which places a little bit (but not too much) exercise on the heart, not just the leg muscles. The Heart Foundation has a campaign running to get people into a pattern of regular walking. You can enroll in the program with them and it involves walking for about 20 minutes, three times a week over a period of six weeks. That means if you start now you will be ready for the Christmas rush by about the start of December.

To kick things off in Oberon, the Heart Foundation have partnered with Walk'n'Talk For Life to have monthly meetings at the Oberon Common for people to share their experiences and progress. The first of these get togethers will be at 11:30 on Sunday, October 19, and at the same time in following months. (See What's On for the next meeting.)

There's a lot more information at the Heart Foundation's web site so
Go here for all the details and to enroll in the program

School Daze.
October 16, 2025 in Schools

With all the schools on holidays there wasn't much going on last week, so instead here's an article from Australasian Science magazine about an education fad that persists to this day despite no real evidence that it works and some very real reservations about possible bad effects.
Read the article here

A little bit of sport is all I need
October 16, 2025 in Sport

It was a big day for the Tigers when they had their annual presentations, and congratulations to all the winners. Golfers had great weather and even brought out some promising youngsters to try the game.
See the scoreboard here

When kids are better citizens than some adults
October 23, 2025 in Community

Back in August some brainless thieves stole plants from around the Oberon Library and Community Centre. To show that young people have more civic responsibility than some adults, a group of kids have been planting flowers around the building. (Thanks to Lincoln Briffa for the photo.)

Lunch on a train
October 23, 2025 in Community

Saturday, October 18, was another occasion to get together to celebrate and experience the Oberon Tarana Heritage Railway.
See some photos from the day here

There's a new fireperson in town
October 23, 2025 in Community and People

Oberon's Fire Station has a new firefighter, Tara Steward.
Tara answers some questions about her role here

Another Men's Shed raffle
October 23, 2025 in Community

Another Men's Shed raffle has been drawn and won.

Winners are:

• 1st Prize, $500 voucher from IGA, Victor of Oberon.
• 2nd Prize $300 trailer load of wood, Cathy of Oberon.
• 3rd Prize $150 voucher from Foodworks, Joan from Oberon.

Liana, Oberon Pharmacy's Podiatrist was the barrel girl this time around.

Look for Shed volunteers outside of IGA most Fridays and try your luck with a few tickets. There is also a secondary raffle with first prize of a restored wooden rocking horse, and kids bikes as second and third prizes. This one will be drawn just prior to Christmas Day.

The Shed meets every Tuesday morning at the Oberon Showground. There's always plenty of coffee and biscuits or you can stay for lunch. There's no pressure and who knows, you might enjoy the camaraderie among the blokes there.

And now for something completely different
October 23, 2025 in Community and Entertainment

The words above come from one of the greatest comedy shows in history. Look it up in Google if you don't (or are too young to) remember. What is different this time is that a comedy show is coming to the Malachi Gilmore Hall on November 8. Featuring Carolyn Swindell from the Sydney Comedy Festival, Sean Woodland from the Melbourne version and Lithgow's own Marty Bright, the evening promises to have you rolling in the aisles, splitting your sides with laughter, having tears running down your cheeks and any other clichés you can think of.

The event is supported by Arts On Tour and is part of the Backroads Touring Initiative which aims to bring entertainment to the sort of places that sometimes get overlooked when acts are on tour.

It's back to school time
October 23, 2025 in Schools

Everyone is back for the final term of the 2025 school year and life has become very busy for the students. Unfortunately, it looks like one local school, Black Springs Public School, might not make it into 2026 because of the rules about the minimum number of students. It's always been a small school, but for the bureaucrats, too small is too small.
See the school stories here

There's always time for some sport.
October 23, 2025 in Sport

Something to do in the idle, sport-free period leading up to Christmas - play some soccer! And there's always golf, of course.
There's more about this here

NAIDOC Day at the Common
October 30, 2025 in Community

The theme for the 2025 NAIDOC celebrations was "The next generation: Strength , Vision and Legacy" and a good crowd got together at the Oberon Common on Saturday, October 25, to join in the celebrations and participate in the various activities.
See some photos from the day here

A new business in town
October 30, 2025 in Business

Well, it's not really a "new" business because it's been around for more than two years at markets and artisans' fairs, but now it has a new home and a shopfront.
See the story here

Media release: Oberon Sports Complex
October 30, 2025 in Community and Sport

The wait is nearly over, now that the management of the facilities in the new Sports Complex has been decided.
See the media release from Oberon Council here

It's Insta time
October 30, 2025 in General News
Updated June 4, 2026

If you look at the bottom of this page you will see that Oberon Matters is now on Instagram. This will be used the same way as Facebook - to announce updates to the web site, not where the action happens. The possibility of using X as well was investigated, but despite ticking boxes to say that the only input from elsewhere should be News and selecting the news outlets that might be of interest (AP, BBC, ABC (Australia),CNN, ...) the first three things to appear were a post demanding the "death" of the United Nations, a well-funded climate change denial group announcing the terror of net zero and an account calling itself "R3tards from Australia" seemingly attacking a class of people. A swim in one of the tanks at the Sewage Treatment Plant would have been more pleasant.

In another life I created an Instagram account that now has well over 200 followers. I have never posted anything to it. So why do people follow it? Maybe because every notification email from Instagram makes you scroll past a list of accounts you should follow before getting around to telling you that someone has commented on your account. This makes it all a bit less useful than it could be.

The account at Instagram was closed at the end of May, 2026. It served no useful purpose and the time spent posting there was wasted.

Book review - "Last Will" by Liza Marklund
October 30, 2025 in Reviews

It's not often that you pick up a fiction book almost 20 years old and find that it is immediately topical and relevant to today's current affairs, but this book published in 2006 is just that. It's about the competition to win a Nobel Prize ...
Read the review here

A bit of updating
October 30, 2025 in Community and Opinion

Some information has become available about matters addressed in two articles here in April, 2025. You can read the updated articles at the links below.

• Here we go again - Council Vacancy
• Editorial - Council vacancies

There's lots to learn
October 30, 2025 in Schools

The HSC is well underway, but school life goes on for everyone else. Even the kids just starting out.
See some pictures of school life here

It's just the golfers chipping away at sport
October 30, 2025 in Sport

Oberon's golfers kept on golfing. Everyone else just celebrated the 2025 season and started planning for 2026.
See the golf score cards here

October 2025 Oberon Council Meeting
October 31, 2025 in Community

October Oberon Council meeting.
See a report on the meeting here