Like so many others in our community, my family and I have now experienced COVID. We were very grateful we didn’t need hospital, yet we struggled with the supposedly ‘mild’ symptoms.
Many of the things the people of Whitehorse need to access, or just like to do, will continue to be impacted by staffing and supply shortages or our own health.
I hope what equally develops is a greater empathy and patience. I certainly slowed down and have a much deeper appreciation of the challenges for people needing to isolate, which includes lots of people in Eley Ward.
McCrindle Research has identified a number of 2022’s expected trends in Australia. They predict we’ll be working hard on our relational fitness as the flimsy social muscles of the last two years come out of ‘bubble-tainment’.
FOMO (fear of missing out) can become a different kind of FOGO (fear of going out). We are inevitably less confident in our social skills, and will have to find intentional ways to communicate more – not less.
I’d like to think that support for relational fitness can be very locally driven, recognising that we are all looking for a lifeline to belonging and being heard.
There’s been high interest in a change to the Burwood Brickworks Development Plan relating to stormwater quality, including through Your Say Whitehorse in January. It’s a complex matter to communicate what the change is about, and what it’s not about, while discussions continue.
It affects Brickworks and Melbourne Water’s Eley Road Retarding Basin. A report will come to the Council Chamber to try to help with transparency and clarity; I encourage all to tune in when it does.
