MORNINGTON Football and Netball Club’s match-day barbecue duo, Kellie Pitt and Jenette Holcombe, have been named Week 13 winners in Bunnings’ national Legend of the Tongs competition, and are now chasing the $25,000 grand prize. Legend of the Tongs is a nationwide search to recognise and reward the local community legends who fire up the barbecue every weekend, serving up snags in bread to raise much-needed funds for their clubs. Known around the club as the “Snag Hags”, Pitt and Holcombe have run the club’s barbecue for around three years, after deciding to start fundraising for the club’s netball program.…
Author: Sarah Halfpenny
MORNINGTON has been ranked the fourth-best destination in Victoria for shopping small, according to a new national survey of more than 4,000 Australians. The AMEX Shop Small Destination Index placed Mornington behind only South Melbourne, Geelong and Ballarat, ahead of Fitzroy, Richmond, Brunswick, Bendigo, Camberwell and South Yarra, which rounded out the top 10. The Mornington Business Collective (MBC) committee member, and Farrells Bookshop owner, Kate Horton, said the town’s accessibility and variety were key to its appeal. “I think it’s a good, easy driving distance from Melbourne and even Greater Melbourne,” said Horton. “You can park for free, then…
RYE resident Josephine Nicholls AM founded national charity Brainwave Australia 30 years ago, and will mark the milestone with a gala at the National Gallery of Victoria on 29 August. Brainwave supports children with brain conditions and their families across Australia, from diagnosis through treatment and recovery. The charity began after Nicholls’ eldest son, Nick, was diagnosed with a brain tumour as a six-year-old. Nick and his younger brother, Edward, had both come down with a virus, but while Edward recovered within days, Nick didn’t. His only symptom at first was a change in his balance, before he began telling…
WESTERN Port Steelers player Olivier “Ollie” Lemire-Guevin will leave for Utah Prep Academy in the United States in mid-August, after being offered a scholarship through an Australian sporting agency. The 15-year-old, who has played in the Big V ‘Steelers’ Men’s Division 1 development program this season, will spend Year 10 as a sophomore at Utah Prep Academy, an international boarding high school for elite sports students set on a spectacular 55-acre campus in Hurricane, Utah. Lemire-Guevin has played for Western Port since he was in under-14s, working his way up through the club’s junior pathway into the Youth League and,…
ROSANN “Rosie” Italiano has been awarded a Paul Harris Fellow, one of the Rotary Club of Mount Martha’s highest honours, in recognition of more than 40 years of volunteer work across the peninsula and overseas. The fellowship, which honours Rotary’s motto of “Service Above Self”, was presented to Italiano at a recent club function in recognition of her work with the Mornington Community Support Centre (MCSC) and a string of other organisations. Italiano said she had no idea the recognition was coming. “I’m just floored. I had no idea, absolutely none,” said Italiano. “I’m still trying to comprehend it, but…
H5 bird flu has been detected in Victoria for the first time, with one greater crested tern at Portland confirmed positive and a second suspected of carrying the virus. Wildlife Victoria said it was first alerted after a concerned member of the public called about a tern displaying symptoms of the virus. It advised the caller to avoid handling the bird and to contact the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline immediately. Wildlife Victoria monitored the case until Agriculture Victoria responders arrived to contain and test the bird, which returned a positive result for H5 bird flu. A second greater crested tern…
STUDENTS from Mount Martha Primary School helped plant 550 trees at The Briars on Friday 24 July, ahead of National Tree Day, as part of an ongoing partnership with Mornington Peninsula Koala Conservation. Thirty-nine of the school’s 46-member Community Engagement Team took part, with students ranging from Year 1 to Year 6. “The Community Engagement Team is made up of students who successfully applied for the role,” Mount Martha Primary School Year 3 teacher, Alice Matthews, said. “As part of the application process, students shared why they wanted to be involved and their passion for making a positive difference to…
PENINSULA Business Network (PBN) will hold a speed networking evening at Safety Beach Sailing Club on 12 August, with proceeds supporting Fusion Mornington Peninsula’s work with young people and young families experiencing homelessness. The event runs from 5pm to 7.30pm as part of the Mornington Peninsula Small Business Festival and will bring together local business owners for timed, structured introductions alongside canapés and group networking. PBN will donate $10 from every ticket sold to Fusion, and will top up the total to $1,500 on the night. Fusion Mornington Peninsula runs the only youth accommodation service on the peninsula, supporting young…
PENINSULA Cinemas Rosebud will screen The Fox, an animatronic black comedy in which the late Sam Neill voices a foul-mouthed magpie – a role he completed and was still promoting in the months before his death in July – as part of a 12-film Melbourne International Film Festival regional program, showing at the venue this August. Directed by Dario Russo, The Fox stars Jai Courtney, with Olivia Colman voicing a trickster fox and Neill voicing a gossiping magpie in a small-town tale of duplicity and discontent. MIFF Regional runs across two weekends, 14-16 and 21-23 August, taking the festival’s 74th…
MEMBERS of the Committee for Frankston and the Mornington Peninsula joined Reverend Tim Costello AO and Wayne Holdsworth at Sages Cottage in Baxter on 23 July for a forum focused on sports gambling reform and the under-16 social media ban. Costello and Holdsworth spoke about their personal journeys on the two issues before taking questions from Committee members. Both social causes link back to Frankston, including the parliamentary inquiry into sports gambling harm chaired by the late Peta Murphy MP. Costello’s advocacy on gambling reform continues at a national level, more than two years after the Murphy Report was tabled.…
HUNDREDS of allied health professionals – including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, radiographers, sonographers, social workers and podiatrists – walked off the job for three hours at Peninsula University Hospital on Thursday 23 July, escalating a pay dispute with the Allan Government. Members of the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA) rallied on the street outside the Peninsula University Hospital from 2.15pm. VAHPA has lodged a wages claim of 36 %, well above the government’s latest offer of between 19 and 21 %. VAHPA executive officer, Andrew Hewat, said the union had to balance the need for industrial action against its members’…
Bec Winters was simply trying to impress a boy named Jed when she accidentally launched Horribly Healthy, now a peninsula food revolution. Eleven years ago, faced with the dilemma of a new boyfriend who couldn’t eat gluten, refined sugar or eggs due to his strict motocross training regime, she started experimenting with raw caramel slice in her kitchen. Today, her Horribly Healthy treats are stocked across Victoria, bringing joy to kids and adults alike, especially those with allergies. “Jed was the initial inspiration,” Bec says from her Baxter workspace, a compact but impressive production kitchen he built for her in…
It began with a group of trainee teachers and a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, but more than six decades later, PLOS Musical Productions is about to bring the sound of 1960’s New Jersey to the Frankston Arts Centre stage – and then hand the torch to a new generation. The Peninsula Light Operatic Society, as it was first known, was born in 1962 at what was then Frankston Teachers College (now part of the Monash University network). Student teachers with a love of performance came together, staged Iolanthe, and set something in motion that nobody could have predicted would still…
MAIN Street in Mornington will be getting its Christmas glow-up again, with group The 4 Cs calling for more volunteers to help decorate every one of its 76 trees. In 2025, Mornington resident Pam hoped she might find enough people to dress four trees along the strip, after several people commented that Main Street had lost its Christmas spirit. “We decorated 38 trees last year,” said Pam. More than 40 volunteers had jumped on board by December, each claiming a tree. “Some people knitted, some people crocheted, some people did sewing, or a combination of everything, and decorated their own…
RESIDENTS of St Andrews Beach say potholes on residential streets, including Constantine Ave, are causing costly vehicle damage and dangerous near misses, with the Mornington Peninsula Shire confirming there are currently no plans to resurface the roads or upgrade drainage. Constantine Ave resident Shani Hillier has lived on the street for almost 10 years. “It’s been an issue the whole time,” she said. Hillier said she had punctured a tyre because of the road surface, and that a nearby tyre shop had told her punctures were an everyday occurrence, not just on her street. She said a blind corner on…
BRENDAN Wiseman works shifts at Cafe W in Seaford and Sages Café in Baxter as part of a hospitality career the 23-year-old has built over the past year. Wiseman, who lives with an intellectual disability, joined disability employment provider Wallara Australia after finishing school to explore different job paths. He has since gained experience in coffee-making, customer service and food safety. “It’s good for your mental health to interact with people. You don’t want to be isolated,” said Wiseman. “I’ve progressed in choosing what to say around people and increased my social network. It’s really good.” Wiseman has gained his…
FROM his first primary school cross country race, to the start line at the 2026 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Archie Hewett’s path to representing Australia has demanded everything he has. The Mornington resident will compete in the 1500m on 27 July – under the T20 classification for athletes with an intellectual disability – in what will be his debut at a major international Games. His mum, Sarah Hewett, traces it all back to a cross country race when he was in Grade Five. The quiet and unassuming Archie represented Benton’s Junior College, finished in the top ten and progressed to…
AUSTRALIA’S peak ecotourism body has removed a case study promoting Arthurs Seat Eagle from its website, one day after receiving a formal complaint from peninsula community group Save Our Seat – though Ecotourism Australia says the decision was an administrative update, not a response to the complaint. The case study, published on 29 November 2023, documented the Eagle’s completion of Ecotourism Australia’s Strive 4 Sustainability Scorecard (a self-assessment and benchmarking tool for tourism businesses) in June 2023. Save Our Seat lodged a formal written complaint on 25 June 2026 requesting its removal, arguing the case study amounted to an endorsement…
WHEN Sonja and Ian Duric opened Stories by the Sea in Mount Eliza last year, inclusion was in the blueprint. The independent bookshop has been recognised with the Stan Spencer Award from the Rotary Club of Mount Eliza, which honours significant contributions to education and community life on the peninsula. Sonja and Ian are parents to Neave, who is autistic, and together they spent years confronting the barriers the world places in front of neurodiverse young adults, so their vision for the shop grew from lived experience. Their idea was to open a “sanctuary” – their word – where stories,…
PROTESTERS wearing penguin masks gathered outside Mornington Central shopping centre on 30 June, joining a national day of action demanding vitamin giant Swisse stop selling krill oil harvested from Antarctic waters. The 4pm demonstration at Chemist Warehouse in Barkly St was one of nine held simultaneously across Australia on the day, organised by the Bob Brown Foundation. Actions took place at Chemist Warehouse stores across Victoria – including Melbourne, Geelong West and Footscray – with further protests in Perth, Hobart, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide. Peninsula resident Lisa Bouten was among those who attended the afternoon demonstration. “Really encouraging to see…
WHEN Tina Coumbe, principal of Crib Point Primary School, visited her local kindergarten to meet incoming students, she came back concerned. A number of children had such limited oral language that she simply couldn’t understand them. If she couldn’t understand them, how was anyone going to teach them to read? That sense of alarm, and a phone call to the Mornington Peninsula Foundation (MPF), set in motion a literacy overhaul that would eventually encompass 10 peninsula schools, and outpace state government policy by three years. “It found us in a way,” said MPF CEO, Stephanie Exton, of the foundation’s unexpected…
SOUTHERN Peninsula Sharks guard Seth White became the first player to crack 50 points in a Big V Youth League 3 Men’s game this season, putting up 51 against Maccabi at Rosebud Stadium on Saturday 20 June. The 18-year-old Dromana Secondary College student finished with 12 three-pointers as the Sharks secured a strong win over a side that had beaten them earlier in the season. The groundwork for the night was laid that morning, when White attended a mindset session with Sharks assistant coach, Andrew Cipriano, who also works with athletes on the mental side of their game. “I just…
Black figs carry deep meaning in Aboriginal ways of knowing. They’re associated with birthing, nourishment, and community gathering, so it seemed the right name for a café built to do exactly that. Blak Fig opened on the Nepean Highway in Frankston in January 2025, established by First Peoples’ Health and Wellbeing as a social enterprise training café for First Nations people. The idea had been building for a couple of years. In 2023, the organisation commissioned a literature review looking at the connection between Aboriginal social enterprises and health outcomes. “It found a strong positive link,” said CEO Karinda Taylor.…
TWO of the Balnarring and District Historical Society’s longest-serving volunteers have been recognised with the Royal Historical Society of Victoria’s (RHSV) Award of Merit, for their contribution to local and Victorian history. Ian Wisken and Ilma Hackett were announced as recipients at the RHSV’s Annual General Meeting on 26 May. Wisken founded the Balnarring and District Historical Society (BDHS) in 1990 while serving as vice principal of the newly opened Balnarring Primary School. His research into the history of Balnarring’s original state school led him to call a public meeting to gauge interest in forming a historical group – a…
MARK Daw has spent more than a decade responding to floods, fires and road accidents across the Mornington Peninsula as a volunteer with the Victoria State Emergency Service (VICSES) – and that commitment has now been recognised with one of the country’s top honours. The Rye resident has been awarded an Emergency Services Medal (ESM) in the King’s Birthday 2026 Honours List, recognising his distinguished service as a member of an Australian emergency service. An official ceremony is set to take place in August. Daw found out about the award by email, before he even knew who had nominated him.…
Kelly Nash has spent her life saying yes to things that terrify her. She left a secure teaching career in her late twenties to become an actor, despite resistance from those around her. She’s raised kids while carving out her career as a performer and educator on the Mornington Peninsula. And now, as she returns to the role of Patch in Sea Wolves Howl, she’s doing it again: playing a character who has found profound healing in the very thing Kelly herself isn’t a big fan of – the open ocean. When local theatre company, 60% Water, launches their regional…
EVERY second Friday night, a food trailer pulls into the Young Street car park in Frankston, and the smell of a barbecue drifts into the dark. No invitation is needed, and no one is turned away. The trailer belongs to Life-Gate Inc, a Frankston charity that many locals have never heard of, despite the hundreds of lives it touches each year. CEO Lauryn Hornby has been part of the organisation for 20 years and says the fortnightly event is central to what Life-Gate is about. “The heart and purpose of it is a community barbecue, and anyone’s welcome,” she said.…
WHEN the Big Freeze 12 action kicked off at the MCG on 9 June, Rye Bowls Club had its own version well underway, including a volunteer willing to take a bucket of ice over the head. That volunteer was Peter Pearson, who accepted the icy plunge as 52 members and supporters turned out for the club’s Big Freeze fundraiser on the King’s Birthday public holiday. They raised $1,280 in entry fees, plus proceeds from the sale of Big Freeze caps, all donated to Fight MND. Club president Bill White said it was a genuine community effort rather than a club-run…
DEMAND for palliative care on the Mornington Peninsula has surged by about 27 per cent over the past four years, outpacing the resources available to meet it, according to the acting chief executive of Peninsula Home Hospice. Julie Murphy said the local service was feeling the same pressures identified in a new state election campaign by Palliative Care Victoria, which warns that 62 Victorians die every day without ever receiving specialist palliative care. “Access is a challenge,” said Murphy. “Our referral rates have increased, our demand has increased… the ability to respond when needed is a challenge and it’s a…
SEVEN new homes in Hastings will soon offer safe, affordable housing for women and children experiencing housing insecurity, delivering long-term stability for some of the peninsula’s most vulnerable residents. Women’s Property Initiatives (WPI), a community housing provider with 28 years experience working with women and women-led families, is developing the $4.5m modular development in partnership with Mornington Peninsula Shire. The shire provided the land on a long-term peppercorn lease – a nominal arrangement in which land is leased for a token amount rather than market rate – with funding coming from Homes Victoria through the state government’s Big Housing Build,…