January 2025

Associate Professor Greg de Moore is a psychiatrist, who is the Associate Director of clinical services at Mental Health Western Sydney. Last year he entertained us with an excellent presentation on Tom Wills, Australia’s first sports star.

This time Greg’s interesting presentation was on the life and achievements of John Cade, the Australian who discovered the first effective treatment for the mental illness bipolar disorder. Lithium therapy has become the gold standard for bipolar disorder. 

February 2025

We were very lucky to have Chris D’Arcy from Search Dogs Sydney join us in February. Chris and his partner Adele brought along their delightful tracker dog Koa.

Search Dogs Sydney are a specialist search and recovery team with trained canines and state-of-the-art drone technology to locate missing people. Chris shared some of his experiences when looking for missing hikers in the bush, Alzheimer patients who have wandered away, lost children or people trapped by natural or man-made disasters.

A big thank you to all club members for the tremendous support in signing the Search Dogs Sydney petition and for your generous donations. Chris and Adele were very appreciative.

April 2025

Paul Kearney’s presentation was on early Rock and Roll in Australia.  

Most of the early Rockers were from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s. They made appearances on Bandstand hosted by Brian Henderson and Six O’clock Rock hosted by Johnny O’Keefe. 

Once again Paul took us back in time to the days of our youth and we had a sing along to some of the videos as well as a few laughs.

May 2025

We were very lucky to have Judith Dunn join us on short notice. She was an excellent speaker and imparted her vast knowledge of Australian history with clarity and humour. She had us captivated with her presentation on ‘Unknown Pioneers’.

In a past life, Judith was a school administrator and also studied Tourism. As well as being an accomplished historian, Judith runs her own tour company called ‘Past Times Tours’.

She has been awarded an OAM for Services to History and Heritage, is one of two elected NSW delegates serving the Federation of Australian Historical Societies and serves on nine committees.

June 2025 

Preet Chouchan who works at Service NSW joined us in June.

Her role as the Savings Finder Specialist is to assist and support customers with saving money by applying for current rebates and vouchers. 

Preet informed us of some initiatives and programs available through both Governmental and non-Governmental agencies. 

Many members booked an appointment with her at Service NSW Castle Hill.

July 2025

Jim Haynes is an author of 34 books of Australian history, humour and verse. He is 2GB’s Australiana broadcaster. 

Jim’s presentation in July was titled ‘Perhaps I’m Sentimental’. It was an entertaining PowerPoint presentation of history, humour, poetry, opinions and observations from Jim’s book of personal memoirs. Jim’s talk was full of nostalgia and humour.

August 2025

Our August speaker was Nicole Peng who is a senior counsellor at the Homicide Victims Support Group Australia. 

In 1993, Martha Jabour, the CEO of the Group,

set up the HVSG to care for families and friends of homicide victims.

It has provided life-changing counselling and support to over 2,000 members. 

In 2013 Martha established her vision for a world-first trauma recovery facility. She inspired politicians, companies and community members to fundraise. Blacktown Council provided the land for Grace’s Place which opened in 2023. 

Nicole spoke about the wonderful work of the group’s members across grief, trauma and crisis management. This only can occur with constant fundraising.

Below are the contact details for those members who were interested in helping the HVSG’s Parramatta OP Shop.

In April 2024, Grace’s Place provided care for overseas families of the victims of the Sydney shopping centre attack, including accommodation, counselling and funeral assistance.