Apollo Bay
Voice News
28th July 2023
Annual General Meeting
Dear ABCV Members, Residents, Ratepayers and all others with a strong bond to the area
This will be the last communique from me as the interim committee chairman. That’s because the AGM on August 6 will truly constitute an historic moment when our membership (standing at 183 as of today) has its say about who will represent it on a now fully constituted and incorporated entity. I am hugely excited that four members of the community, who are not members of the interim committee, have nominated. Our thanks to Seamus Fillmore, Steph Goodlet, John Marriner and Beth McLoughlin for stepping up. If you have been thinking of standing, I would encourage you to get your nomination form in. If you are on our mailing list but are not yet a member, I’d ask you to take two minutes out of your day and sign up. Both membership and nomination forms are available at the hardware, the bakery and the newsagency. Our email is
The AGM will be held at the Bowls Club at 4pm on Sunday August 6. It will be a brief affair but will be followed by the opportunity for informal conversation about issues of concern over drinks (at bar prices). Please remember, only ABCV members can vote for nominees to the permanent committee.
A couple of important things have been achieved since our last committee meeting on July 19. Firstly, we have agreed on the logo for the ABCV and thank Wilhe Mitchell for the very large number of hours she has put into multiple design iterations. We now have a symbol that speaks directly both to the mission of the ABCV and to the role the sea, fishing and mariners have played in shaping (both directly and indirectly) all the towns, livelihoods and industries embraced within our geography.
Secondly, we have registered our domain name (tba) and Mikhala McCann has volunteered to create our website, with very minimal annual hosting fees. The committee is very grateful to Mikhala for putting her technical wizardry at its disposal... gratis. We’ll let you know when the website is up and running. It will obviously serve as an information centre and a membership recruiting device but as the ABCV gathers momentum it will hopefully become much more. One thing that the committee recognises is that an unloved website, which is not regularly updated with new, relevant and interesting content, is worse than not having a website at all. This will be a small but important challenge for the ABCV post August 6.
On behalf of the ABCV, I’d like to thank you all for the tremendous support we’ve received and the enthusiasm for the future of our community that has been expressed. I would also like to acknowledge how important a role the NewsSheet has played, since March, in spreading the word and to thank the bakery, newsagency, hardware and information centre for allowing us to leave voting boxes and membership/nomination forms at their premises: their support has provided us with a genuine touchpoint with the community. Vital start-up funding has been gratefully received from the Chamber of Commerce and from Ian Wilcock and Jo Beaumont, our “inaugural citizen patrons”. Last but not least, can I express the ABCV’s absolute appreciation for the work Pamela Carey has put in over these last months. Pamela volunteered as a minute taker but she has done so much more – throughout the day, in the evenings and over weekends. Pamela will be greatly missed by the ABCV as she will be hanging up her computer after August 6 and returning to her creative and business pursuits!
As usual, I’d like to leave you with a thought for the day; or, actually, a couple of thoughts. The first is from the late, great Joan Rivers: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God’s gift. That’s why we call it the present.... Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny”.
Finally, from Epictetus (a 1st century Greek Stoic philosopher) “Happiness and freedom begin with one principle: some things are within your control and some are not”.
See you August 6!
Nikki Williams
Interim Committee Chairman
For more information please email