Buloke Shire Council

Council is excited to be nominated as a finalist in the 2024 LGPro VIC (Local Government Professionals) Awards for Excellence in the Outstanding Small Rural Council Initiative category for our "The Paddock” initiatives in response to the October 2022 Flood Event. Winners will be announced at the 2024 LGPro Annual Conference Awards Dinner to be held on Thursday 2 May at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Congratulations to everyone involved in The Paddock initiatives and all our staff for their support of our community in recovery. Joanne Postlethwaite Daniel McLoughlan Wayne O'Toole Jenna Allan Travis Fitzgibbon Brayden Cocks

Big news! Council has adopted its Children Youth and Families Plan! The plan combines the Buloke Shire Council Children & Youth Strategy and Buloke Shire Council Municipal Early Years Plan into a single ten-year plan to address the needs of children, young people, and families. The plan focuses on planning, advocacy, and the delivery of services, programs, events, and spaces for children, young people, and their families under four priority areas: 🍉 Health and Wellbeing 🤝 Connected Communities 👩🎓 Learning and Earning 🎨 Engaging Spaces and Places   We would love you to take the time to read the Children, Youth and Families Plan at https://lnkd.in/gMHNpCwf #BuildingABetterBuloke 

Buloke Shire Council staff played key roles at the recent LGPro VIC (Local Government Professionals) Social Media Conference, sharing our skills and learnings with the sector. Manager Community Recovery Joanne Postlethwaite delivered a well-received presentation posing the question to a room of several hundred Local Government social media professionals, “When you post on social media, do you ever stop to consider where your community is at that moment?” Director Community Development Travis Fitzgibbon facilitated a session taking a dive into AI Risk Mitigation, what may lie ahead and how we can learn from the social media explosion when it comes to our approach. Well done both on representing Buloke and demonstrating how we are #BuilldingABetterBuloke a little differently. #LocalGovernment #SM24

Council has made two key appointments to its Executive Management Team, both with strong ties to the area. Jenna Allan has been appointed Director Corporate and Organisational Performance and Daniel McLoughlan as Director Infrastructure and Delivery. Both are already established and highly regarded organisational and community leaders and are raising their families in their respective hometowns. CEO, Wayne O’Toole is thrilled to make such tremendous appointments. “This is an exciting time, to be appointing two outstanding local leaders into these roles will underpin the strength of Council’s leadership for many years. Jenna and Daniel have been at the forefront of the two most significant undertakings at Buloke in the last two years, being the October 2022 Flood response and recovery and the transition from Aged and Disability Services. Their compassion, leadership and expertise will carry both them and our organisation a long way”. Both Jenna and Daniel will commence their roles in the short term, fully furnishing the Buloke Executive Management Team alongside Wayne O'Toole and Travis Fitzgibbon.

It’s hot and we get that it’s disappointing. We know that free access to swimming pools is an important part of a Buloke summer. Council has always struggled with staffing our pools at this time of year, even despite employing around 80 staff for this season. Our workforce of casual staff has mostly all returned to their university studies or alternative employment, and we are trying our hardest to keep pools open. The lifeguards we have are limited due to their other commitments and cannot necessarily move between pools to share shifts more evenly between townships. Our lifeguards are mostly local staff, as are our facilities team, and other staff that support them, all of whom are doing their best to keep our 7 pools open for community enjoyment to the best of our ability. Commentary on our pool closure social media posts is very much seen and felt by our staff, they are all extremely passionate about the pools and are community members themselves. For many of them, this is their first job. Council will continue to find it challenging to fill shifts with the necessarily qualified staff across these last few days of this pool season, we ask that community respect our staff in the pools and facilities team both at our pools and over social media. If anyone feels they can make a difference at this time of year by availing themselves to casual employment as a lifeguard, please get in contact with us for next pool season.

What a time we had in Sea Lake last night for our annual Australia Day Eve Event. Congratulations to everyone who was nominated for our community awards and thank you for everything that you do. Further congratulations are in order for Trevor Emonson who was named Citizen of the Year, Blake Lee who is our Young Citizen of the Year and the Buloke Collectible Vehicle Club whose ‘Show and Shine’ was crowned Community Event of the Year. Thank you to our incredible guest speakers on the night too in Brad McEwan, David Younger and Jade Benham. #BuildingABetterBuloke 

Cr David Pollard was tonight presented with his Municipal Association of Victoria 15-year service award. Cr Pollard is currently serving a fourth term as Councillor and has served three terms as Mayor from November 2011, 2016 and 2017. Congratulations David and thank you.  #BuildingABetterBuloke

The BIGGEST thank you! Council in the last week of November staged a celebration to commemorate the significant contribution made by staff and volunteers through nearly 40 years of Aged and Disability Service provision to the Buloke area, dating back to pre-amalgamation. A special day of celebration was held at Charlton Park as Council transitions from the service. Members of the Buloke community, current and past clients, staff, volunteers, and contractors joined Council for an afternoon tea, formalities, and introductions to the newly appointed service providers to the Buloke area. In addition to the afternoon tea, the event included a formal recognition of the service and staff and guest speaker Ben Harkin who had everyone entertained, enthralled, and inspired. In coming weeks, a special place of reflection in commemoration of the service will be completed in Elliot Gardens, Charlton. Thank you to each and every one that served the community.

The 16 Days of Activism starts tomorrow and runs until 10 December 2023. It is an opportunity for every single Victorian to say: enough is enough. Violence against women is preventable, and this 16 Days of Activism and beyond, we have an opportunity to change the story. To prevent violence against women and family violence, we need to address the harmful attitudes and behaviours that drive violence across our community. Let’s work together to challenge harmful ideas about gender and power, and create a future where we are all safe, equal and respected. Local Councils play a critical role in supporting their communities to take action to prevent violence against women. Buloke Shire Council is proud to work alongside Women's Health Loddon Mallee and Respect Victoria to help create safe, equal and respectful communities. This 16 Days of Activism Council is running our own social media campaign featuring local women and other champions of change. To learn more about 16 Days of Activism, visit: https://lnkd.in/gwTRkTfr #16days #16daysofactivism #respectischallenge Safe and Equal

Lifeguards are awesome! Thanks to our amazing lifeguards and facilities team for their work today completing the pool preparations for opening day of the season. Congratulations team! We are open at five locations right now for a FREE swim! Berriwillock will be just a couple of days away and Charlton not far behind. Like to join the Lifeguard team in red and yellow? Visit https://lnkd.in/eRvnNZN #BuildingABetterBuloke