In 2021, I ran for Local Council and was elected as a true community-focused independent, focused on empowering the local community and representing the Lane Cove people’s voices both at council and beyond. In 2022 and again in 2024, I was elected Deputy Mayor.
Formal politics was never on my radar but I have strong roots in the community and was awarded the 2018 Lane Cove Citizen of the Year award for community service. Stepping up into a Local Government role has allowed me to contribute to change at a broader level.
As the instigator and co-founder of The Sydney Library of Things. We now have three active branches with more planned! It’s an honour to work with a terrific group of volunteers who are passionate about this project. I’d love to see a library of things in EVERY council. It just makes sense. Please get in touch if you’re interested in volunteering or donating items to this tool library.
As one of the founding members, and a previous committee member, I help out on jewellery and ceramic repairs. Come along and say hi! It’s held monthly on the first and second Sundays of the month between 2-4pm. Even if you don’t have something to repair, it’s a great place to hang out and learn some repair skills and we’re always on the lookout for more volunteers. Find out a bit more about Repair Cafes.
My husband and I have spent many years slowly developing a 557sqm house with lawn block into a sustainable permaculture garden at home and on our verge for neighbours to share. In 2014, the garden was opened to the public for the last year of the fabulous ABC Open Gardens Australia event. In 2018, the garden was awarded first prize in the Edible Garden category of the Lane Cove Council Garden competition. In 2021 the garden was shown Nationally on ABC’s Gardening Australia.
This was a project started in 2019. As the initiator and president I was passionate about encouraging and inspiring growing edible produce in street gardens, home gardens and public spaces across Sydney. SEGT also distributed all profits to the community in the form of grants to community and school gardens, growing communities as well as food. In 2025, I stepped back from this project to focus my time on the other local community initiatives I’m involved in.
For many years, my Partner and I owned a low-impact bed and breakfast in the beautiful cool temperate, mountainous town of Sagada. We’re both passionate about living a life based on permaculture principles and were concerned about the deterioration of Luke’s ancestral town in the Philippines caused by unbridled tourist development and the massive increase in the use of plastics so we purchased a run-down property on the outskirts of town. We slowly turned it into an example of a low-impact, low-cost eco-retreat, utilising permaculture principles, greywater, rainwater capture and renewable energy. We held free workshops on composting and other sustainable skills. We built the first ferro-cement rainwater tank in the village, and taught and employed locals to ensure that these skills were passed on to the local community.
With the support of North Sydney Council, this is where you’d find me working at the bench or chatting to customers. Apart from showcasing my own work, I also supported work by other contemporary jewellery artists, ran an exhibition program, providing free community workshops, and occasionally taught short courses with a bit of private tutoring on the side. The Projectspace closed in 2023.
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Studio 20/17, a combined workshop, contemporary jewellery gallery and retail space, was setup in 2008 with fellow jeweller, Melanie Ihnen. Representing work by various national and international jewellery artists, the workshop also provided bench space for jewellers, short courses in various jewellery skills, private tutoring, and an ongoing exhibition program. Studio 20/17 closed at the end of 2016 when the building was sold for redevelopment into apartments.
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