Author: Stephen Taylor

A FORMER John Paul College and Frankston Chisholm VCE student has been offered a place at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – COP21 – in Paris later this year. Madelin Orr, 19, is one of four Australian recipients of a fully-funded scholarship from Global Voices, thanks to sponsorship from her university. “I am an external first year Bachelor of Laws student at Central Queensland University and have been granted the opportunity to represent not only Global Voices and my university – but also Australia and Frankston – as a delegate on the ground at COP21,” she said.…

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CHELTENHAM Baseball Club has a handy pitcher and big hitter in 13-year-old Shelby Roberts. He has only been playing for two years at the club in Farm Rd, Cheltenham, but has achieved a lot in that time and currently plays at the highest level possible for his age. Dad Daniel said: “Shelby loves his baseball and is working hard towards playing for Victoria and Australia in the next few years. “His longer term goals are to attend college in the US to ‘play ball’ and, maybe, one day get signed to the majors.” Shelby’s commitment is obvious: He has been…

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HIGHETT cartoonist Alan ‘Al’ Rose feels more relaxed drawing for a country audience with his works, which usually have an amusing rural theme. “Country people are more at ease with cartoon strips, which I like to draw,” he said. “Like Footrot Flats, I love that one. I have relatives on a farm in New Zealand and it’s them down to a T.” Rose has been drawing strip cartoons since 1977, and is a member of the Australian Cartoonists’ Association. Naturally enough, one of his favourites is his long-running comic strip The Fabulous Bush Pigs, about a trio of pigs that…

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SUCCESS at a Golden Gloves tournament in Brisbane recently has given new impetus to the budding boxing career of Jackson Murphy. The 15-year-old, of Frankston, won his two flyweight bouts (52kg) at the national championships and can now realistically dream of representing Australia at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in 2018 and the Olympics in Tokyo in 2020. “It was his first trip on a plane and he was terrified,” dad Jason Murphy said. “He had two fights in two days and really stepped up to the plate, never losing a round in the three two-minute-round bouts.” Jackson,…

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A MONEY trail event at Patterson River Secondary College has helped students raise funds to buy books for underprivileged children in Somaliland and Cambodia. We are talking big money, too: The students raised more than $1000 – with office staff needing several trips to take the heavy load to the bank, teacher Janet Mitchell said. The event was supported by Buddhist monk The Venerable Terry who is collecting good quality, used textbooks, as well as fiction, for orphanages, schools and universities in the African and Asian countries. Ms Mitchell said the school has been involved in the program for four…

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