THE women of Tamborine Mountain have long been more than just its backbone.
They’ve been at the forefront of its development as a strong and close-knit community.
They have led the way in politics and art, fought some of the biggest battles to preserve the environment and continue to unite the community daily.
For International Women’s Day we celebrate five women who selflessly give their time to others.
Nadine Biddle
In 2012 when Nadine Biddle set up a little wishing tree to drop and pick up presents outside her house, she had no idea how vital it would become to the community.
A Little Means a Lot blossomed into helping families all year round with everything from food to furniture.
“It is simply the community helping the community,” Nadine said with local businesses, schools and churches all donating.
She works around the clock responding to call outs and personally delivers every item to those in need while also linking people into local resources.
“I really wanted to ensure when people donate items it goes directly to those most needing it and try to bring the community together, but also keep things confidential,” she explained.
“Going through tough times doesn’t discriminate; it can hit anyone at any time.”
She said the cost-of-living crisis is hitting people on the mountain just like everywhere else but is perhaps less visible.
A Little Means a Lot operates purely through word of mouth.
Nadine also works as a youth worker working with vulnerable youth and runs the Facebook group Tamborine Mountain Disaster Emergency Preparedness, which she also began in 2012.
“I wanted to connect the community with real time support during emergencies,” she explained.
“When you are stuck, and you’ve got the kids in the car and they’re screaming you click on the page and find out which way you take to get home in real time,” Nadine said.
“I’m really community minded and have a passion for people and uniting them. Life hasn’t always been easy for me, and I want to be able to give back. Sometimes we just have to get in there and do it ourselves.”
In 2019 Nadine won a Pride of Australia Queensland Award for her work with A Little Means a Lot.
“We need to lead by example to show the younger generation the importance of volunteering and supporting others,” she stated.
Clare Wray
Clare Wray is a mum of three children ranging in age from nine to 12 years of age and Marketing Manager for a construction company. Last year she completed an MBA.
She is a volunteer on the Community Disaster Working Group which was founded just under a year ago.
Following the Christmas storms she began working with a group sourcing generators, prioritising the elderly and single mothers.
They set up a GoFundMe page and reached out to those who could donate.
In the aftermath of the storms, Clare drove around with a generator for two weeks, triaging people who were in dire need of power, providing them with electricity for a couple of hours.
Her MBA academic supervisor was an army reservist deployed to the area for the storm cleanup.
“I told her I felt helpless. My husband was out chainsawing and I had gone back to work, and I wanted to do something for my community. She suggested researching it,” Clare explained.
“The more I read about how disaster response and resilience worked the more I felt we had to do something that was just for us.”
She began to research the community’s baseline resilience and identifying our areas of strength and weakness that would allow the community to improve its resilience to disaster, independent of government.
Using the Torrens Resilience Initiative Community Scorecard she was able to capture the community’s resilience.
Her results were reported to the Inspector General of Emergency Management as well as the National Emergency Management Agency, the Scenic Rim Regional Council and published in the Australian Journal of Emergency Management.
She has established community peer sessions for new residents every two months, a booklet called Life on the Mountain and bi-yearly community preparation days.
Her long-term her goal is to embed disaster preparedness in schools.
“I had a desire to empower the community to self-reliance and to lift everyone up to be more capable,” Clare said.
“Particularly as women being reliant on someone external to you is very unsettling. If we have the skills or knowledge, it lessens the anxiety of worrying about when an external party will come and save us.”
“I’ve lived in a lot of places around the world, but Tamborine Mountain feels most like home. I feel a sense of responsibility; it’s given me a great deal and I wish to give some back.”
Vanessa Bull
Vanessa Bull wears many hats and I’m not sure when she sleeps.
If there’s a snake in your bedroom at 2am or an injured animal, she’ll jump in the car and come to the rescue.
If St Bernards Primary School breakfast club is short of people, she steps in and if anyone needs any form of help, she’s often the first person to be called.
Vanessa is patron of the Tamborine Mountain Little Theatre Group, President of the Tamborine Mountain Show Society, Disaster Coordinator of Tamborine Mountain Lions Club, a member of the Disaster Preparedness Group and she’s on the board of the Tamborine Mountain College.
Through Lions she runs the wildlife project which sponsors local wildlife carers donating the money she gets through her snake catching to them.
“My mother always brought me up saying you must give back to the mountain because the mountain has been so good to us,” she said, after her single mum, Elizabeth Marshall, brought Vanessa along with her brother and sister to Australia as 10-pound poms in 1964.
Elizabeth’s strength and tenacity and charitable heart has certainly carried through to Vanessa.
“It’s about being community minded and doing things that are beneficial but also enjoyable,” she said.
From 1997 for eleven years, she was Councillor for the mountain and for part of that time deputy mayor of Beaudesert Shire Council.
As councillor Vanessa was responsible for the building of most footpaths as well as the Long Road Sports Centre.
Amanda Hay
Ever since moving to the mountain in 2012 to retire Amanda Hay has immersed herself in the community and used her outspoken nature to better people’s lives and the environment.
Her passion for horticulture and the environment attracted her to the Tamborine Mountain Garden Club where she later became a committee member for Springtime on the Mountain.
Realising how special the mountain is she wanted to ensure it didn’t become over developed and directed her energy into the Tamborine Mountain Progress Association, now the Preservation Association.
For years through the TMPA she fought major development cases, including the groundwater extraction in Power Parade in the Gillion Pty Ltd v Scenic Rim Regional Council case.
The battle over the Eagles Retreat Development case had significant financial implications for Amanda.
She is currently a co-respondent with the council, arguing against the development of cabins at 36 Young Street.
“I have always been involved in the community,” Amanda explained.
“It’s important if you have the time, skill and ability you should contribute to make your environment a better place.”
Privately she uses what little spare time she has to help locals lodge objections to their land valuations.
She is approaching two years as the councillor for Division 1 – a job that consumes her days, nights and weekends.
She reads every word of the hundreds of pages of each council meeting agenda to ensure she is across not just the issues on the mountain but the entire Scenic Rim.
Rarely a day passes that Amanda is not attending a local community event, either personally or as councillor, from local kindergarten events to the opening of local artist exhibitions.
“I like to support things that benefit locals living here,” she said.
And she believes celebrating women in our community is very important: “nothing changes without someone stirring the pot,” she laughed.
“We have had a lot of influential women here who have made a significance in various fields, but they tend keep a low profile.”
“Things like the TMPA have been led by women in recent years; the volunteers who give selflessly of their time to make the mountain a better place.”
